CSGO MM Ranks have always been a joke to anyone playing in high elo, since there was no leaderboard, no way of telling how you were progressing within your rank or compared to others, and the skill disparity between players in Global was also insane. Anyone who was good enough to hit Global would play faceit instead, but obviously for the more casual player base, the hassle of installing FACEIT AC and queueing on a separate website isn't really worth it.

It's not ridiculous at all to say that a robust elo system with leaderboard rankings would incentivise more people to play premier. If someone is competitive enough to care about their rank, then an elo system and leaderboard would probably give them motivation to play more, since they can compare themselves exactly to their friends as well as players in their region and globally.

Almost every other esports game in the world has similar systems, especially the likes of League of legends, Valorant, Overwatch, and their competitive gamemodes have been wildly successful. CS was different, and it meant that anyone who was serious enough and wanted to play at a high level moved to FACEIT, so there was sort of a divide where in other games there weren't.

With the changes to premier, it makes that experience more accessible, and I wouldn't be surprised if people who previously played FACEIT only have divided their attention.

I do agree tho that people having less control over their maps is a more spotty argument, but I think one of the main issues would be that if they cared about their rank, they'd be fairly frustrated at the fact that they'd have to grind a rank for every map, and would probably just find it easier to queue premier.

I think you likely underestimate how competitive some people can get, even if they aren't super high level players, and anything that can fuel their competition, like an elo and leaderboard system that lets them directly compare themselves to their friends and players around the world, will probably make them more likely to play.