mctrivia: You've correctly pointed out a weakness of the Elo rating system, which is used here and in many other places. This system treats all players' ratings as equally precise, even though some have played many games and others have played few.

The Glicko rating system addresses this issue by introducing a ratings deviation (RD), which estimates the uncertainty in a player's rating. A very active player will have a very low RD, indicating that his rating is very reliable; someone who has played only a few games, or who has not played in a long time, will have a very high RD, indicating that very little is known about his true skill level. When new ratings are calculated after a game, both player's RDs are taken into account. If your RD is low and your opponent's is high, the change in your rating will be small.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Glicko system implemented here, as I believe it is superior to the Elo system. If other changes are made, I hope they are based on careful mathematical reasoning. Introducing ad hoc rules and drawing lines arbitrarily are, in my opinion, as likely to make the system worse as better.