Yeah matchmode where one player is the host isn't the best way to handle it. You need dedicated servers and a system where it's not just grinding your way to the top. Your skill should go up when beating players with same skill or higher and with your win streaks based on the avg of the skill lvl of players you have beaten in your win streak. When you lose your skill should drop... Right now it's just grind grind grind and dealing with people that d/c all the time and the tons of dodges.

At 5k funds the low rank player probably will have the hardest time against a high melee general, where bow gen and leadership gen aren't as bad to deal with. Some of the low rank players complaining about getting matched vs high rank players is just because of the fact they don't know some of their skills like rally or spearwall, but more so just because most aren't very good and are just learning the game and not so much the vets... I've lost to a couple rank ones that were decent players where I didn't have the numbers to deal with them, but ofc I was using a bow gen at the time and not a melee general.

The more you play the better you'll get and the more vets you'll get, so in time it'll pass... You don't need high vets to beat a high ranked player, just make best of your numbers especially if you got missile advantage against a tiny army, just use rally and block with a couple of units while keeping the rest back and firing away with your missile units.