Gardian ranks don't necessarily mean anything as a form of expressing skill, but they are the only thing in the game that even attempts to guide new players through the game. The path they offer isn't even that bad of one, considering how poor the new light experience is, and if they take out ranks its not like they'll replace it with something better. The main issue I've seen people have with them is simply they don't like being told what to do, or we have such a high/different standard for what a good player is that even the higher ranks represent a mediocre player at best. The one i sympathise the most with being that you need the most current dlc to rank up past 7 or 8. Of course, there's also the small minority that actually does suck and are just butthurt they can't make number go up, but they're not worth considering past laughing at. There's million things wrong with gardian ranks, but If people participated in the ranks in good faith instead of "this thing is bs since it asks me to do something I don't like, or already did. now I'll never like them and wish they were gone forever." they might have been able to put them in a better place. People complain about having to redo ranks every season, but I've never had to go out of my way to re-rank up and always rank back up just by playing the game as i normally would. I had no problem with doing all the easy stuff I wouldn't normally do the first time around. I think gardian ranks are just not structured the way people choose to progress through the game, and that kills any desire to use them as the guide im guessing bungie intended them to be. At this point, almost everybody knows that they don't correlate to actual skill anyhow, so there isn't any point in getting rid of them when nothing better(or worse) will replace them for the people that do like them.