I was the 4th player in the world on Xbox to achieve A1 status, on Feb 4th 2012. I played the hell out of Ranked! =D
Back then ranked match was more competitive, because all the badass players like Chaotocity, Thermidor, and Chrono played ranked and there would only be like 6 A rank players in the world. Back then it was tough to get past B rank, besides nobody was a total badass yet. Now it's just a bunch of angry people seeking recognition, or noobies who don't want to join player match or the GC. I went back to Ranked after not touching it in 3 months and got rage quit on 4 times out of 9 matches, I was like "WTF BBQSAUCE?!"
I prefer player match or the amazing GC, as you get fights a lot faster. But it sucks if they want to send you hate mail they just text rant in the GC...