I really feel like writing an essay or something defending the original ranking system, but for now just a few words since I'm seriously disheartened by the number of people cheering for the old system to be done away with:
Argument 1: The old system forces us to play songs we don't like to get ahead.
Point: Do you really think it's fair to be able to get the top spot ignoring maps you hate? What about the monthly charts? Aren't those only according to someone's taste?
Argument 2: It's meaningless because you can just play easy maps that have more points to pull ahead of more experienced players.
-Is the time investment in this game really worth nothing to you? Most good multiplayer scoring systems both offer ways for super skilled players to jump up quickly AND methods of "grinding" to crawl your way to the top in a slow but steady way. Why shouldn't a player be rewarded with a higher rank for having played a LOT more maps, or having been with the game longer, investing YEARS into their rank. Is it really fair to (us) to just decide one day, ya know, rank isn't accurate, let's just do away with it and find a more creative way to rank the players.
This is just to counter-argue some of the points brought up on this thread, I could write more about why I really agree with the current system for ranking and why it is a very good system, but I'll save that for another day.