A problem comes when people insist on instant recognition and respect simply because they have tied the belt around their waist. Tournements are good for sorting this type of thing out at a certain level. I remember reading how Chuck Norris beat both Nakamura and Joe Lewis in the same contest in 1967 using Tang Soo Do. It's hard to argue with an art's legitimacy when the guy who just beat you is a black belt in that art. There are other ways to exert quality control, such as governing borads etc. but the usefulness and effectiveness of an art are always going to be the main ways of determining things. If someone straps on a black belt and says he is a 10th degree and he beats all of the others at that rank, I will have to give him credit.
Dan Weston
"It is not the art that makes the man, but the man the art."---Funakoshi Gichin