I have played many, many, MANY matches in this wonderful game and one of the many things that has compelled me to progress in this game has been levels - at least thats what was one of my compelling elements from before. But now I've come to realize that having a numeric level system that everyone is ranked by publicly is an arguably counter-productive part of playing this game.
Lets look at some key arguments that can be made about this (and I absolutely encourage all of you to put in your own two cents [constructively] to this as I value hearing all the various points of view of this subject):
Levels identify skilled players, this is a absolutely a convenient measure I won't argue that, but it also creates a stigma among newer players too. Lets say we have some high level players collected on a team and a new low level character hops aboard. Not that this is always the case but frequently enough I have witnessed a dismissive and sometimes scornful attitude players have towards playing with these new players. Believe it or not I have seen and known enough players with alt accounts that half the time I'm never really sure if they really are new to the game, let alone knowledgeable enough to move ahead with their task. There are also many awesome players who pick up on what to do very quickly and I realize this is reasonably more frequent of a characteristic than many would believe.
Elitism. Well this is a grayer topic, but the sense that you are more superior to your fellow player just because you have a higher level seems silly - having a level system enumerating where we're at publicly is a sort of fuel to this kind of fire. I'm sure many have thoughts on this point but its one of those things that does exist among some players and it *can* be impairing for player to player interaction.
Skills. Just because I'm a level 45 in all areas does not mean I am a super ultra hyper awesome jack-of-all-trades player. Yes, I do many of the roles reasonably well and I've played them frequently enough to earn the level numbers based on this new system - but I sure feel like there are many who can surpass my skills in many of these areas and to be recognized for this distinction is a bit misleading. The bottom line is that many of these level systems can be misleading us in thinking we are more than capable of what we actually handle at that stage of our understanding and play style. This can also be a factor of deterring players from facing one another when they review the levels each side has (I know Muse has made efforts in hiding that in lobbies but there are ways of getting around this and lets be honest, many of us do that to review the skills gap between sides).
The radical notion of removing this might seem completely outrageous to many but when you really think about how it plays into the game, its not a terribly bad notion really. I'll admit it is very unlikely this idea would ever see the day of light in a dev build buuuut the purpose of this is to discuss the topic frankly and think about the factors that weigh in on these kinds of implications.
