Sure, C is going to be filled with both casual players and players who don't have enough time to git gud. And D and E, well god help you if you're down there. But part of the reason I was stuck in C was that I kept getting penalties for other people's errors. I could see a lot of people were not great drivers but were trying to race cleanly, but there were always a couple who were driving like jackasses. But even with flagrant behavior, I didn't see those people getting knocked heavily on penalties, and meanwhile I was often getting penalized for them running me off the road, ramming into me, etc.
So my point was, unless the system is refined, I don't think it's going to present clean (and fair) races for the majority of people. And if it only works if you get to the elite ranking, then it's a failure as a system. One thing that would mitigate this is if the penalty system should be more forgiving if you're in rank C than if you're in rank A. For instance, if you rear-end someone in C, maybe it doesn't actually penalize you unless you do so at high speed, or maybe the first collision is free. Give them a warning instead of a straight penalty. That kind of thing. Let them get used to racing etiquette as they learn the tracks and racing with other people instead of sending them down. That's dispiriting. I know there's a lot of hardcore sim people here, but you have to keep in mind that most people picking up GTS don't race against other people, and if they do it's been more of the bumper cars mentality.
So I think that's probably the biggest flaw of this new online paradigm. It's like Kaz thinks after watching two racing etiquette videos everyone's going to be driving perfectly. You gotta ease people into the competitive, sportsmanship mindset slowly. Give them a few yellow cards before you hit them with the red card.