[bit_flipper]

A lot of what you're saying depends greatly on the exact game you're talking about and what winning and losing means, for instance if the game has discrete places instead of a bimodal winner/loser.

For a few of the games I worked on, random matchmaking like you describe is a non-starter. If you're a 90th percentile player in one of our games, you effectively never lose to a 70th percentile player or below. Your rating will be so high that we can't give you any rating system points for the win. So the person who won got no reward other than the feeling of winning, and the person who lost played a match they had no hope of winning. It ends up feeling pointless to play as a top player because only 1 or 2 matches in 10 on average have any meaning for you. Needless to say, it also feels worse as a low rated player because you simply lose more often.