I jumped straight into ranked games when I started. But I have also written Glicko2 software successfully so am fully aware of what the ratings mean and do and I know from other games (starcraft 2) that people have an irrational fear of ‘ranked’ games.
Progression is important though so I would be much happier with ratings down to 35 and an improvement. The matchmaking doesn’t have to change.
As an aside on the ranked/unranked one of the best writers about ranking system was Sirlin and he wrote some wonderful articles on ratings years ago (about SC2 mainly). The article linked below has some interesting comments on ranked/unranked games as well so I recommend it to those interested in ranking discussions. It’s only on wayback as far as I can tell now… Just for those fascinated by ranking and Glicko though!!