Official Season 4 Gear Requirements

[Xame]

I don't think that's the only effect that will make the ratings more difficult to attain...
This is going to cycle an even larger number of inappropriate matchups through the lower ranks, making then 1500-1700 range even more impacted than it is and even more difficult to surpass than it is.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends how blizzard spreads the points after the matchup. If there goal was to punish a high rated team that cycled in a bunch of noobs because they were "paid" this would be pretty good. Image you faced a 2500 "rated" team at 1500 because they cycled in players that rated at 1500. Thus the match is 2500 verse 1500. If the 1500 team wins, you will score 40-100 points and the 2500 team would lose that many. Great for the low end team and horrible for the high end team (losing 100pts in a single match for a high end team would require just crazy amounts of gold or real world money). If you lose to the 2500 team at the 1500 bracket, well you give them 1 point. From a "pot odds" (using a poker term), I like it. It almost completely eliminates team selling/points farming since the team rating will be worth about 3-4 games to under rated players.

What will most likely happen for the sellers is that they will sell the 5th slot on a 5v5 team to get some of the lower rated S4 gear in the hands of those who don't deserve them. But this is a far cry from what is currently happening.

Arenas will always be what they are. High end teams will strive to be the best and the competition at the highest levels will always be very good. It will hopefully stop the stupid selling of teams when people feel that they are not going to make a "title" and would rather exchange that for cash. Low end players (PvE) will farm points for pretty decent gear with a low level of time commitment given the WONDERFUL speedup of the queues (S4 pt free/S3 gear is still very good and the S2 weapons are still decent while waiting for your BT weapons). 6-7/hr played per epic at a crappy rating is still a pretty decent rate.