Returning players being punished, badly.

Not really. Wanting to be cooperative with everyone (not just a subset of players) to temporarily overcome inherently bad design is infinitely better than colluding with others and proving that the design is bad. I've always thought the shard design is awful and being part of a mutually beneficial shard chat would not have changed that. I'd still fight for change and argue for the OP because I know the design is bad. I know plenty of people that have easy shards or that are part of good chats and would rather have fleet arena changed.

It's the same reason I have argued for easier access to WAT/KAM despite having completed both of them. Access to KAM after ROTE dropped pretty much died and the cost to get him was absurd. Being able to identify a problem that doesn't affect me or empathize with others who have voiced their issues is a pretty handy skill.

In regards to the shard system:

1. It doesn't respect player time or effort (forced to play at a specific time of day every day and the returns don't match the effort per player).
2. Player distribution is not balanced (this kind of ties in with #1 - some shards are nearly dead and others have 200+ active players).
3. It is not skill or merit based (because mafias can abuse 3rd party tools to track people climbing and collude to keep them down - a single player game mode should be single player).
4. Your opponents are permanent (this kind of ties in with #3 (which is why I responded to OP), but you're not always fighting on even ground - returning players are effectively punished by playing against people who have half a decade of rewards - it's not skill based because the competition is impossible to play against).
5. The top of the shard is self-fulfilling (those at the top will continue to  stay at the top because they have the rewards to invest in the future requirements to maintain their position).

GAC fixed most of these (except partially #5 - accounts trading hands instead of dying means that the top spots will almost always be taken and climbing into those higher spots will be difficult, but it's still better than before) for squad arena.

The shard system is inherently bad design and it should change.