What hurts the game is abuse of the ratings system. This appears to be a major problem on the zone. Examining the major types of abuse will give us some ideas for fixing the system.
1. Smurfing. IMHO, this is the single biggest problem with the rating system. Let's compare zone ratings to chess ratings; in chess you only have ONE rating (for the most part) which is never reset and you keep for your entire life. In addition, every game you play in tournaments is rated. Games you play for fun are not. A solution to fix this problem is to reduce the number of ratings players can have to ONE. A unique serial number system (akin to starcraft) on each CD could identify players and assign them a unique ratings ID number. This implies that only players with CDs would be able to play rated games. (Listen up MS!) You would be able to change your zone name and play anonymously, but your rating would still be the same. Hard-core smurfers would have to buy MULTIPLE copies of the game. Of course, MS would need to be diligent at preventing pirating of ID numbers.
2. Disconnects. The next biggest problem I see is disconnects. How are we supposed to treat disconnects? I propose going back to treating a disconnect as a loss. Even though the game is played peer-to-peer, by monitoring the zone connection, we should be able to distinguish between those who get dropped from a game (while still connected to zone) and those who lose their connection, for whatever reason. Drops should not count against you, while disconnects would. This forces people who actually are concerned about ratings to upgrade modems and software (Listen up 3Com!) and get new ISPs (Listen up MSN!). When playing team games and a player gets disconnected, he should get a loss and everyone else should get no points. That way, a disconnect only hurts the offending party and not his allies. By keeping track of the number of disconnects, other players can decide whether or not to risk starting a game with a heavy disconnector.
3. Nuking. If we make disconnects a loss, then nukign becomes a major issue once again. The zone should come up with some method of preventing nuking so that the ratings have some credibility. One alternative is to get a good "nuke nabber" and make it available and advertized to all players interested in ratings. Another, more difficult system, is to have the zone software track for ping flooders or what-not and to revoke their zone accounts - possible now that we have unique serial numbers.
So, in conclusion, I offer these potential solutions: Unique ID numbers on the CD for each player, disconnects counting as losses, no effect on allies when one player disconnects in team games, and some sort of nuke protection/education.
I'm OUT! (finally)