I've been here for over two years now, and I haven't seen the "ranks" and post counts be much of a problem.

I have seen numerous threads where people discussed their post counts and ranking, deliberately posted frivolous messages just to push them into the next rank, etc. I even think there have been threads with titles like "increasing my post count", or "yay I made it to journeyman". Considering how long you've been here, I can't believe you haven't seen these threads.

The worst example -- and I have seen this literally happening right before my eyes once and it really pissed me off -- is users who sit there and post/delete post/delete post/delete very quickly. The deletions do not detract from your post count, so this was one way to artificially increase your rank. The user I witnessed doing this in realtime got a single private message: "KNOCK IT OFF", and they did. But how many have done it when I wasn't watching?

This is terribly counterproductive and it is a distraction from the basic function of this BBS. I can envision other BBS's where it might be a fun and useful feature, but I don't think it does us any good.