I think what is truly wrong with the whole QAT vs. mappers thing is, that everyone here seems to accept the premise that it has to be "vs."
The ranking-process should not be about pushing your will through against QATs, but about reaching a compromise. The compromise should be based on the understanding that opinions on quality differ, but that the conjoint effort of both QATs and mappers will lead to a better result in most cases. The same should be true from the QATs perspective: They shouldn't just force their opinions on the mappers, but act with the aforementioned idea in mind.
I've seen people antagonize the QATs everywhere, and who knows in some cases they might have been justified in doing so. Maybe some QATs are biased and unfair towards certain mappers. However, I know for sure that many mappers have publicly been proper assholes towards QATs and their work, calling them corrupt, twisted and whatnot. I refuse to believe that the QAT is a community made of children that are on an embarrassing power-trip together, who deserve treatment like that.
Maybe stop introducing and then fortifying the idea that it has to be an "us vs. them". If you do that consistently, they will eventually adopt the idea and act accordingly. Stop making up sides like this is a battle or a war.
Instead, just treat them like people and give credit to them for the work that they are doing instead of acting all up-stuck and self-righteous. Because THAT certainly isn't helping. It just makes you a pain to deal with.
People are a lot more willing to make a compromise if you are nice to them. I hope, in the end we just all want to contribute to this game in one way or another.