Thoughts on S28

For the most part I can't relate , seeing as I only started playing in season 25 split 2 , but I feel your pain on the servers part ...

The best ping I get is 180 and honestly it sucks going behind cover and still dying.

Also just keep in mind with character movement is that , I'm guessing people complained about needing more characters so they needed to change the game to accommodate that.

that’s understandable. I have been playing since season zero and I have no issue with adding characters, but every update doesn’t have to be just adding another movement ability. That also hurts all players because now teams crash on you so much quicker. I think fuse, octane, horizon, lifeline, revenant, ash (not in that order) have all gotten buffs seemingly back to back over recent seasons. I like movement legends, but it should be intentional movement not a “panic movement” ability because all that does is create a crutch. And you don’t need to have spam movement. Loba and pathfinder have much slower, more balanced cool downs. 

"There is no incentive for people who are “above average” to play."

I'm not here to counter any of the things you've said about the game. But I will observe that in general, at any level of skill, fun is the incentive to play the game. Any game. And when a player starts asking themselves what their incentive is to play, or to keep playing, odds are good that they're burnt out. Yes, there are things the game can do or offer than will slow or speed up the burn out, but the real incentive to play, for the love of the game, remains the same. No badge will make up for that if you've lost it, and if you still have it then who cares about a badge? When did being good, or even as you said "above average," stop being its own reward?

So I play with my 2 friends. One is my skill level and the other has always been behind us. Sometimes the similar skilled friend will play with just my other friend and other times just with me. When he plays with my lesser skilled friend, he says the games are easier than when we play, but we manage. when the 3 of us play, the lesser skilled will usually do maybe 200 damage while we are in the 1000s.  The incentive is lost when my lesser skilled friend ends the same rank as us or higher just because his lobbies are easier and he plays more.

I have no problem playing against similar skilled players and have gotten better over the years because i have learned to play at higher skilled lobbies, but when I see my teammate with a masters badge and the game IQ of pre-MMR silver, it makes ranked meaningless

"when I see my teammate with a masters badge and the game IQ of pre-MMR silver, it makes ranked meaningless"

I don't want to be that guy, but I could go on for hours about how any rank grind in a team-based game, especially if you solo queue, is meaningless. And I wouldn't be lying. But I also know that you're talking about something more specific, and I get that too. I've seen the end-of-season rank breakdowns for the last few seasons and it basically looks as if they hand everyone a diamond badge just for showing up. Yes, that truly devalues the rank. A diamond badge from last season is worthless compared to a diamond badge from season 13.

But I'm still going to circle back to what I said four months ago. If I go to school and work my butt off and start a company and make a million dollars, is that million dollars worth less because some schlub down the street won the same amount on a scratcher he got at the liquor store? Sure it spends the same, but his luck doesn't negate your hard work. Unless you let it get into your head. Sure, life is unfair. In that regard this game is the universe in microcosm. Play for the love of the game. If that gets you a rank you're proud of then be proud and stop always looking over your shoulder to see if the system is screwing you by weighting the scale in someone else's favor. The system is ALWAYS SCREWING YOU by weighting the scale in someone else's favor. Some **bleep** at work gets your promotion because he has the boss's last name. Some average looking, average IQ guy gets the hot girl because mother nature gave him two extra inches of glory that many smarter, better looking, wealthier guys didn't get. The government pays for your shut-in neighbor to have really good health insurance while you toil away at Walmart for what amounts to health coupons. I could go on all night. Short version: life isn't fair. It's up to you to decide how to handle it.