Thanks for the suggestions, you guys - I'll let the team know that more rewards + visual distinction for ranked players would help incentivize more participation in ranked.
Thank you for responding. Yup, that and... increasing Steel and XP gain according to which tier a player ranks up to.
This needs no deep explaination ... nobody asked for it but Ubi didn't give a f*ck about that and did their thing instead of putting that ressources into something else that is/was actually wanted by the playerbase.