As a returning player who last played in 2014 I see that this game still has the same problem as always. No matter what you join you're matched with people who are Rank 200+ and will own you, partly because of better gear and partly because they simply have more experience (i.e. better players).
To make matter worse this game is filled with fake silvers. Some trolls usually seem to say "You can still be bad even though you're R255", I would argue that you can't. Its next to impossible to play a game for that long and still be as bad as a new player, the experience alone would make you better and the unlocked gear will help.
A simple solution: Auto-kick or disable missions for gold rank on bronze servers.
A second, more complete, solution is to disable unlockable items above a certain rank for bronze/silver/gold. I.e. for some modifications/weapons/cars you need a certain rank, don't make loadouts with these valid.
E.g. on bronze you might only allow items that are available between rank 1-79, on silver 80-194 and on gold 195-255. These restrictions could be separate depending on mods/weapons/cars and case specific.
This would remove any gear specific advantage, making it more about skill. In addition to this, matchmaking needs to be based on the combination of rank and threat if anything, but I guess the playerbase won't be able to support that - which is why I see locking items more viable. I am sure there have been hundreds of suggestions regarding this.
I fear that the reason for the state of this game is that high-levels need to be able to own noobs or they will stop paying, and it's the high-levels that are the cash cows.
