Automated clan support would be nice. For example, a system where a founder creates a clan, giving him leader status. Leaders can add and remove people from the clan, as well as make clan members into subordinate leaders by clicking on their names, like we do party invites now. All clan members have a tag, as well as access to a special chat and voice chanel, just like the current party system.
This system is simple, easy to understand, and is essentially a persistent 'party', building on an existing framework should be slightly easier to implement?
On to ranked matches. These are probably a bad idea, because in GoI it's basically impossible to tell who was responsible for victory or defeat in a 8v8 game with hard-to-define roles. If you're a good player but your crew has sound off, or there's a language barrier, or they simply can't play, your score will go down unfairly. Unlike other games (such as shooters) one person cannot carry the rest to victory, so ranking individual players doesn't make sense.