Only because you are wilfully ignoring that it does in fact have a lot to do with them.
When recruiting for your FS you want specific things.
- Activity level/visits
- Personality
- Trades
- Tournament/FA participation
Being able to see, at a glance, a number that indicates how much a player can
potentially contribute to #3&4 compared to other players is useful to many of us.
The numbers in green are a decent indicator of production capacity.
The tournament numbers are a very useful bit of info if your FS is tournament focused.
If there are, they are so few as to be irrelevant. Rank chasing fellowships aren't stupid- they know that such a move would hurt their rank in the long run since that player's score can't go up.
But that 160K person
could do far more than you given that they have more space. If they are not participating, and in a FS that cares about FA/TP they will be removed. It's a problem that doesn't really exist.
There is no evidence to support this. Have a look at FS that are highly ranked. You'll find they also do well in the tournament and the FA.
You seem to think that player score is just a stupid goal that some players have, but you are failing to see that others view it as a mark of progress, and a measurement of capacity.
Even if a player buys their rank by purchasing Magic residences and workshops, those buildings are nearly 2x as efficient as normal buildings making their city objectively better. It doesn't meant that they have more skill, just a better city, but that does matter.
If we could see a psych profile of applicants, and view statistics on how often they log in, then maybe we could judge a strangers usefulness by that, but we can't, so using their rank to see
potential usefulness is all we have.