Powers are not "reserved" to the federal government. They are granted. This is an important distinction because the federal government does not innately have any powers so it does not make sense to say that some power is reserved to it in this context. It is the same way with states, but since the states ceded some of their powers (which had previously been granted to them by the people, who are considered to be the ultimate source of the powers by the predominant philosophy of the founders) to the federal government it makes sense to say that the states reserved some of their powers.

Also, the mandates you speak of should be looked at for what they are: loopholes. The federal government was not granted the power to explicitly set (for example) the legal age of alcohol consumption, so it used the loophole to effectively give itself that power. So the guidelines should never work. When the federal government tells the states to follow guidelines, they should be allowed to say "shove it" without being punished because the federal government was never given the power to set those guidelines in the first place.

I know how mandates work. I was just coming up short for a better word. You haven't really said anything I didn't already know, (possibly because you didn't think I understood the point, which is fine. I didn't do a good job saying what I meant), but I will respond to one statement.

"The states can receive (refuse?) without punishment, they simply can't receive the contingent federal funds."

This isn't really true, in my opinion. They really are punishing the states. The money they are willing to give out in exchange for cooperation does not originate with the federal government, it originates with the people of the states. By taxing the people, they are depriving the states of revenue. By not giving it back because they are not cooperating, they really are punishing them.

Article I is mostly about how the government is run, except for sections 8-10. Section 8 is powers of congress, which in summary are:

  - Manage the economy
  - Deal with foreign nations
  - Deliver the mail
  - Run a patent/copyright system
  - Manage the military (standing navy, but the army is supposed to be justified every two years)
  - Govern Washington DC

Section 9 puts limits and boundaries on the powers of congress.

Section 10 says that the states can't do the things Congress is responsible for.

Article II is about the president. The only real power he has is to be commander in chief of the military and to negotiate treaties. There's no new power here; the president is just in charge of a couple of items from Section 8.

Article III sets up the supreme court. No particular powers are granted here, just some definition of the responsibilities of the highest court.

There is nothing in here about "most" powers being granted (not reserved) to the Federal government. Most of the power was still with the states, who were responsible for their own internal governance and who influenced the Federal government through their Senators. The earlier federal governments were weaker than the one set up by the Constitution, but the Constitution did not establish a strong central government. The states were still largely independent, self-sufficient, and self-governing, and only gave up rights related to how they interacted with each other, other nations, and the scope of their military's.

I wouldn't say that States actively resist guidelines and best practices; I'd say they resist unfunded mandates. And the real point is that they're supposed to be able to resist. They're supposed to be self-governed and independent, and if the Federal government tries to tell the States to do something that is outside of the Fed's powers to dictate, the States should resist unless it happens to be a really good idea.

I wonder what would a constitution written today say about the Internet.