Question to players

[KatoKato]

If there are only 3 ranks, for example, there's still going to be a massive gulf in player skill between the highest and lowest player in any given rank.

This. I was reading the entire thread hoping someone will bring it up and well, thank you.
Even if we assume that SE has found some viable way to weigh players' merit, there is still a question of what's going on within the rank. Even in gold the game can easily match up 2.8k dps and 5k, which is hell of a gap itself, even if we don't go into the details about what these 2.8k dps mean for different jobs.

If it's about finding like-minded players, then instead of some shady secret mechanism why not let people actually state their preferences. E.g., to create a df profile where you tick / untick your attitudes, all that applies to one's playstyle: "I'm a beginner/Beginners welcome", "Prefer fast runs/agressive playstyle", "Want my tank to take it slow", "Braindead after 14h shift"... And when the duty pops up, players can see what positions they have matched (highlighted) or not matched (greyed out). Ideally if multiple parties are available people with similar attitudes will be paired up but if not, the queues won't become any longer but the members will be a bit more prepared for each other.