You're welcome, Carl.
Personally, I feel that rank can be a very useful tool within an organization. It gives everyone looking at the structure an idea of who has been training for how long and hopefully a rough idea of skill level.
One problem is that above a certain point, the level of skill tends to be in different areas. I am not a tournament champion, though I hold my own in competition and even have some trophies. On the other hand, I am analytical and can break down the techniques and strategies and communicate them to others in a way that they can use and benefit from.
On the other hand, a guy or gal who doesn't have the temperment for teaching may just plug and chug in personal training and be an awesome competitor with an unbelievable level of execution.
Yet both of us may be the same rank.
Another is that rank tends to get used as almost a multi level marketing tool. For example:
"I'm a fifth dan and my upline is a seventh dan in the business.. er.. art. I have seven fourth dans under me and each of them has produced ten or more blackbelts from first through third. One guy even has twenty first dans, ten second, and eight third dans! He's really going places! Now if you get in to my school, you'll be a part of a growing network of yudansha."
That sounds great to the uninitiated. Looks good in an add for your school in Blackbelt Magazine too. But what does it say about you?
The fifth dan in this scenario isn't talking about blackbelts that he is personally bringing up. Maybe he's eighty seven and retired. But maybe he just struts around his 10,000 square foot dojo in full samurai regalia and speaks in riddles to students and doesn't do any training at all.
So often, high ranking masters pawn off the working with white belts and low belts onto senior students and sometimes onto green belts and blue belts. This is a big problem because generally, green belts and blue belts haven't internalized the techniques to where they can full explain the techique and fully evaluate how the beginner is doing. I think that the higher one's rank (assuming that their ability, depth of knowledge, and teachign ability correspond), the more time that one should spend with white belts and low belts. Building a solid foundation is very important, and contributes to having good, solid yudansha with solid basics.
Also, high ranking practitioners who continue to work with the beginning students stay grounded in the basics and hopefully don't develope the over inflated egos that some do.
Daniel