honestly, i think this is a problem in game design. not entirely on the smurfers (how do you spell it?)
the game made it too easy to drop ranks. ranks are supposed to show your placement/percentile in the game. and high rank is well respected (and for toxic P2W), mid rank is for the average play, and lower ranks are for people who are just starting and need help.
and the origin of all this imo is matchmaking. so far, as far as i can see, matchmaking is based mostly, if not all, on rank. that is only useful when you only go up (losing doesn't lose rank). if losing loses rank, then matchmaking should be just based on rank because you can just drop on purpose. —— which defeats of purpose of actually finding a match.
you see how clan war works, ... each mech gets a rating based on mech parts and how upgraded they are. that imo is how matchmaking should be done. (not entirely tho). we should also look at max rank because that tells us each player's limits so no matter how low you drop, you can still find an opponent with similar mech builds and ratings.