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I know you'll get a lot of "argh, argh, argh . . . gotta win, no trophies for losers!" comments from certain predictable Pelicans who have never coached kids (and who don't even have kids), but coming from a long time coach and parent . . . .
Don't focus too much on winning for coach pitch league 7 year olds. At that level, NO ONE will remember next year who won. They will remember if they had fun, were taught basics, and had a coach with a sane level of perspective. Coach pitch is an "instructional" level of little league, like T ball, it isn't "real" baseball, but just an introduction to the sport.
If you are Little League, you must have certain rules in place (I think all Little League does) for minimum innings played, and minimum infield/outfield. It sounds like you have modified that and done a good job of it, to play and bat players even more than the rules require.
In second place, with 18 teams, all in the tourney, it sounds like you can safely keep your system in place for the first few games at least. IMO it's fine to modify it to try to go as far as you can in the tourney, if you follow the rules it's always going to be ok as far as playing time, etc.
You should just keep it fun with 7 year olds. You should of course teach skills, compete, etc., but 7 year olds are still babies. By the time they are 11 (Little League Majors) they will be in pretty much full competitive, single specialized position, less-skilled-players-never-play baseball, and it will be that way for as long as they play. So there's plenty of time to introduce them later to the "no trophies for losers!" school of hard knocks.
(Finally, at your level, even if your only goal was to win, you wouldn't put the batters in simple order of skill, from best to worst. The better strategy is to mix it up, spread your good batters throughout the lineup).
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