Players were very upset that everything they did was ranked and they couldn't just play for fun without it being rated. It was a jarring change at the time. There was at least 1 unofficial effort as well that met with a similar fate.

Also, some people enjoy challenges, not easy wins. I was an average Quake player but enjoyed playing high ranking players so I could learn, even though the final score was something like 20:1. Off-topic, but the main reason I gave up on computer games is that most mainstream titles today are easy to the level of stupidity and for this reason get boring in few hours max.

Many reasons (basically what the above comments state), but at a high level, people were just not prepared/expecting that, and the (nearby) player poll wasn't that big to allow that.

The world wasn't ready.

I personally think it was the right decision. I enjoyed going to the same server over and over again through a period of years and usually seeing the same people. I learned to recognize them. Some would steamroll over me, some I could dominate, some were a nice challenge. I could pick my battles.