Frontlines needs to be MORE competitive then it is. Thats why it sucks. Thats why we have useless ice licking casuals who score 100k dmg and die 18 times and it doesn't matter. Thats why premades on NA have been dominating every single match with DRK meta comps. The rewards the same, the gameplay becomes stagnant, and nobody is having fun except the premades slaughtering the dead weight on the 2 opposing teams. A prime example of zero competition was the older versions of revised Shatter. There was literally no incentive to kill other players before they made adjustments, it devolves into a mario party minigame. Casual CC actually does have competitive PvP, far more than Frontlines ever has had. A ranked mode isn't needed to encourage more competition.
Nah, I think that will have the opposite effect. The mode is sustained by casual participation and good rewards. I don't believe for a second they could get the number of participants to sustain back to back matches if they do what you suggest. We barely have a competitive mode now in CC because it always has so many issues. FL is a casual mode and wishing it was anything else is a pipe dream.

I generally think the mode is fun enough early in the day before people start running metas. People are actively trying to win the match, playing the objectives and actually look at the map. The callouts are concise and helpful. I personally feel like my contribution to the game matters. Once the we get later in the day you can see a lot of people just stop trying. Following a DRK train around is not really all that engaging, imho. People falling for obvious pulls over and over and over again. Tons of spam in alliance chat and people constantly complaining about everything. People off doing weird things. Lots of poor sportsmanship. Few looking at the map or checking their flanks. Whole segments of the team not even doing objectives because it's not necessary. It's barely worth playing at that point.

SE just needs to give the mode more attention. They should be constantly tuning it. But they don't because it's practically a throwaway mode in comparison to everything else in the game.