I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of logic in this decision. My rants are as follows.

Well many of us were disappointed with some aspect or another of the new system. But it seems to me truely excessive to be "extremely disappointed".

1. It is extremal illogical to have 7 ranks whose aggregate has under 10 total users. It is even more ridiculous to have 5 ranks, completely devoid of a user who has achieved the status without ill gotten exp.

2. It is laughable that before 3k exp constituted Saint, and now the highest sizable rank is Bishop (40k exp) with only 6 having this label, and they are only halfway to their previous saintly rank

Well, it seems that within the old system Sainthood had become quite a earthly thing, whereas the new one pushes it back and by far to its heavenly status. But it's still there, depending only on your skills, and involvement and time, and if you don't mean to spend yours to such and extent, do a favour to yourself and do not forget that after all fundamentally this is still a game!! Albeit a stimulating one, and one stimulating you to write (and do) interesting things, Perl-wise, that is.

3. The term saint, is often used to establish stature, it was a well known term in the perl community and by stripping it of its previous meaning you require that people build name recognition for the other more esoteric terms.

My overall impression is that you're exaggerating here too. PM is a great resource, but it does not coincide with the whole perl community, and I don't think that the term saint is all that known in other context. And even if it where, was all that important? Do you know of interviews in which it has been determinant?

4. A more thoughtful system would have been backwards compatible/a superset of the old established naming convention and would have granted ranks above Saint, possibly in the form of a surnames eg. 'Saint of Syntax' etc. This would allow Saints to identify with each other.

On the extension bit I do agree, although some other retouching to the levels may have been done, including the insertion of a few new ones "below" and a (more) moderate stretching, bringing Saint up to, say, 10k.

But that suggestion of surnames I can't agree with. Though it would have been nice to trascend the Sainthood (and human) level by means of a whole new angelic hierarchy. See also other hierarchies here.

5. There was no forum or poll that allowed the users to vote on this decision.

Was it expected to be? Granted it would have been nice, but after all it may also have been a mess...

6. Oblivious to the fact that Perlmonks is five years old, and none has reached 80k xp, the current saint level, the forces from above have lessened the flow of exp. How is someone to reach 80k xp when only a negligible few have reached the half way point, and now there is even less xp than before.

Is it so bad to know that however high you rank, theres' still so much you could do, so much you could learn, so many ways you may contribute to the Perl community?

Or, is one to ignore the ranking system entirely? In which case, why change something that had a purpose?

Why should you ignore it completely? Just do not forget it's there to serve you (in the form of a sort of game) and not vice versa. After all I have a higher ranking than $Larry or, say, autrijus here. Am I expected to go round boastin' about this?!?