I believe if matchmaking were to be re-implemented, it would make user servers obsolete. Why would someone want to go to a betting lobby if they can just play quick games? Obviously that is not he issue though.

The ranking system as of now is completely screwed up. If I win a game, my elo goes down, if I lose it goes down, and even with some mods, I lose and it goes up. Unless the ranking system goes back to the original system, it will be hard to implement matchmaking servers that actually work properly.

Ranks are only to be used if we want to use them instead of just picking players with the same belt. Old ranks were qi-based and they hardly meant anything at all when it came to picking better players. I'm not actually sure why everybody is so against the current ranking system - its only flaw is that it gets stats from all the rooms and mods instead of only the "official" ones which leads to rank farming and so on.

Regular rooms won't die out, there will be less of them and there's nothing bad in that imo. Those who want to chill out with friends and have some chat will be there, those who want to play instead of waiting in the queue will play.