Removal of POI drops in ranked is a mistake

But if most players are defeated within the first minute of a match... doesn't it follow that most players wanted, in fact, chose the hot drop? Knowing full well what the risks were and how likely they were to get an instant re-queue? It seems as if there's a big difference between what players want to see when they watch ALGS and what they want to play when they're in the game themselves. Not sure if I've made a leap of logic there that doesn't hold up. You tell me.

Good point! It’s true that if given the opportunity that a lot of players choose to hot drop and engage in a fight early. This controversy boils down to drop preference, and between casual players vs competitive players. You will have both casual and competitive players who prefer to hot drop and those who prefer the zone drop. 

The longevity of the matches are important the higher in rank you are, because of the amount of RP you lose per match. Reaching platinum and higher ranks, you need longer matches with multiple squads so that you have the opportunity to gain RP. That is where the divide between casual and competitive players comes in.

If you are queueing with a full squad and using coms then your chances of survival while hot dropping are a lot higher in comparison to a team of solo queuers not using coms. 

Bronze - Gold rank players don’t see much of a loss in RP per match but once you pass that threshold the points do add up. Imagine being in a higher rank and you keep losing RP because your random teammates keep choosing to hot drop when they don’t have the skills or coms to survive a hot drop. Sure it presents the opportunity to learn and to requeue faster. However, it is at the cost remaining stagnant in your rank level. 

Again, this all boils down to a preference in play style between casual and competitive players. 

Well said. Although my take away continues to be that this is a solo queue player vs. the world kind of problem. Sure, maybe in ranked there could be (should be) a reasonable expectation for a minimum standard of sensible and game-proven behavior. But also, players have agency to not follow the rules if that's what they want to do. I really don't know how any of that gets reconciled. Except, as you suggested, with mics. Though often, in my experience, not even then.

I still balk when people say, "casual and competitive players." I read it as "normal people and obsessive-compulsives" or "type B personalities and type A personalities" or, my favorite false dichotomy of the moment, "submissives and alphas." I don't know. I'm sure I'm over-thinking it. What's new?

Anyhow, thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.