Not enough players for matchmaking...Really?

Putting together a match, a proper match, requires lots of players, lots of time, or a narrow skill gap. This game has never had a narrow skill gap and it seems to get wider with each new update and each new cheat device that enters the market. This game used to have lots of players (and even then struggled with quality matchmaking) and now has a lot fewer. So the last variable in the equation is time. They could allow the process to take as much time as required to reach the goal of a balanced lobby. They claim they were starting to do this... last season? The one before? I can't remember exactly when it was, but I seem to recall that they said they would let outlier players (high mmr) wait longer for matches rather than put them into lower mmr lobbies where they obviously would crush all comers. Based on my own matchmaking experience they either never even bothered to try this, have already given up on it, or were simply referring to master+ players as high mmr. Lobbies are still mostly all over the place. And not satisfying. And since I haven't seen any posts here from high-skill players complaining about wait times then I have to assume it was all bunkum.

No, I'm sorry to be the one to say the quiet part out loud, but "not enough players" is just the excuse of the moment. This game has never had high-functioning sbmm. Nor has any other shooter I've played since the dawn of online multiplayer shooters with Halo 2. No developer has ever even got the principles of sbmm right, much less the execution. They never will. And even if they did, it would all be ruined in the blink of an eye by the army of cheaters who run this game, and by the army of smurfs trying to hide their real abilities so they can square off against easy targets.