Sadly the requirements, from gear to skill and knowledge of classes, are vastly different for ranked and for dungeons.
You cannot afford to run ranked with pickups (even if the discord is helping), and anyway as soon you got a stronger team facing you and lose, you wont try it again since the outcome will statistically be the same.
It could only work if there was, lets says... 3-4 groups queuing on each side at all times ; this way you could even out the win/loss knowing you will not always face the same opponent.
Anyway it's far from easy for small guilds (and overall small server pop) to find 5 other people with appropriate classes (you cannot setup a non-meta group as you could for a dungeon for example), and the gear, level of play required for ranked.
Besides it's the same issue about rewarding the effort, and bringing incentives to the table : grouping or not, it will never alleviate the cost of a loss (even if in this case, I agree, mmr loss wont matter), and after one defeat or two against the same team, group will just stop playing because no other goup to face ; better solo queue and hope for a good matchmaking than getting opponents free insignas...
Another option to incentivize could be rewarding group play with insignas, like :
- 1 insigna for a loss
- 3 insignas for a win
This way you get more people wanting to continue since the reward is reachable, even if it will take 3x needed matches most people wont care, and I dont think it will degrade level of play (ie. not caring about loss and sabotaging your team) since the reward is much greater for a win, exactly like all other game modes I would add.
That's the "binary 0/1" system wich is bothering me, like ranked was totally disconnected from other components and dont act the same way (dont reward people for time/effort invested).
In every other mode, being RvR, Fort, City or Scenarii, you feel much more rewarded for you time, even for a loss ; there is AAO system, you always got at least 1 oppressor after a scenario (and more if you managed your best), you got bags, even after fort and city you lost.
Your goal is reachable, even if it takes you far longer than the winners ; you dont have a brick wall in front of you saying "you cannot get to this until you win X %, forget about it", or "you have no friends amongst the best 80+ players to play with you ? Too bad, but it's your own fault".
I like the equity that have been put in place in all aspects or RoR (recently being fortress bags for defenders), but ranked is sadly made the wrong way around to be desirable and motivating, and I don't think the state of queue will disagree with that statement.