Agree to a point. I fear TG rating will never be that accurate, and the RM 1v1 rate will be what RM - General used to be.Well, I think these changes are bad, because they only fit expert players, which are probably 5% of the whole community. So, don't tell me these changes were made with the approval of the whole community because that's totally ridiculous.
I'm referring specially to the reset of the rating. I mean, of course it is a good thing that expert players start playing a lot against each other to get their ratings back, but do remember, experts are a huge minority in the community.
Big noobs like me, they only come once in a while to have some fun and with this resetting I find myself having no fun at all, because now the 1600 players (which was about my rating) are either a lot worse or a lot better than me, especially on teamgames. So you never find a game which fits you. And it will take a very long time until it corrects itself and in the meanwhile, bad and medium players get dis-encouraged and stop playing.
Of course experts should be heard on important matters, but the ones keeping AoC alive are the medium and bad players, the big majority of this community.
So I think this changes could have been made, but say, only for 19++ players. The ones who really care about rating.
I am in the same situation as you, my old rate was around 1600 but I have found the reset quite fun. Fun to challenge yourself in TG with better players (and they don't kick you now). Its not as intimidating as it used to be either because you often don't realise they were 18xx before the reset. Has really made me realise the skill gap from 16xx to 18xx isn't that big as I thought it was.