I suspect Paradox will expand this system in a DLC or expansion. Making the cardinals and important priests of the realm named characters makes a lot of sense.
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I've been generally pretty positive about Project Caesar's development, but cardinals-as-buildings is one of the most bizarre design choices I've ever seen in any Paradox game ever. It makes no sense at all, and I'd frankly rather not have Cardinals than have them be represented by this absurdity.
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Building cardinals also leads to the ahistorical outcome of most cardinals being from outside of Italy, which was definitely not the case.
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Historically most countries that stayed Catholic were:
1) Large (Spain, Portugal, Austria, France & Poland),
2) Physically close to the Papacy (Italy) OR
3) Historical Enemies of Protestants (Ireland)
In game you want a similar pattern to be normal.
Points 1 & 2 gave the country in question some influence over the Catholic church. Countries without 1 or 2 needed to become protestant to get influence over their own churches. The best way to show that is to give countries in points 1 and 2 cardinals.
Money for buildings solves #1. Personally I'm not keen on the Cardinal buildings though because it doesn't work in point 2. There were an awful lot Italian Cardinals (and French Cardinals during the stay in Avignon).
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I know this is the a map painting game forum so people use a map painting brain when viewing history but preety much everywhere in Europe protestantism and other cults of the likes rose up. 95% of the time the only difference between if a country stayed protestant or not is if the central government or outside governments could enforce it on its people. The difference between a catholic England and the current founded on a fat man wanting a divorce was the Spanish Armada arriving on the coast. France could have been Hugenot if they managed to crush the French armys and upcoming rebellions afterwards. Bohemia would have likely been the first protestant kingdom and independent if the Habsburgs didnt stop it. The factors you mentioned did factor in making containing protestanism/just killing protestants easier coinsidering the political situation art the time but they were not foolproof or set in stone. Espacially with Austria as we know it not happening in 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999% of EUV games.
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England's fat man (aka Henry VIII) partly became protestant because he couldn't get concessions that were important to him from the Pope. England wasn't a big enough fish.
Historically Austria/Bohemia/Hungary also had a Protestant majority before Ferdinand II took a very active role in reversing the tide (except in Hungary). An emperor who believed that being Catholic was important was a big part of reversing the trend. Why did the emperor continue to prefer to be Catholic? Because he could get concessions from the Church when he needed to (and so didn't have to rethink if Catholicism was for him, a la Henry VIII).
Getting new seats for Cardinals should require petitioning the Pope for a new seat using your religious influence and good Papal relations and then with the Pope's approval, it unlocks one Cardinal seat to build. Ideally the location is set in the petition.
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For me, it's not so much about the countries, but rather papal power, where the granting of cardinals was a big part of papal foreign policy. I do want the pope in this game to have certain powers that other leaders don't have, and I feel like appointing cardinals is an essential one.
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I feel that the rate that a state gains/loses religious influence will depend on Papal State relations. I could also see the Papal State have a method to add/remove a chunk of influence. Both of those together to me is covering the relations and approval.
(I hope that the power and satisfaction of the Clergy estate has an affect on religion influence. Maybe power affects the rate or a cap on influence and satisfaction limits the 'spending' of the influence.)