I dunno, I was pretty stoked when I made it onto the list as number 9 or whatever it was. That drive to get higher was a huge reason I pushed myself to get better and to also not let myself get passed up by anyone else. That's why I thought maybe it would be a good idea to make it top ten. But people don't have to participate, so if you really don't want to be in it than that's fine and you'll just be kept out regardless of where you'd go. The whole point of a PR is to help promote competition for people to get better, especially among people that are really close to others skill wise on it. People just need to realize that there is a bit of objectiveness in any PR, and they need to take it with a grain of salt and not get their feelings hurt if they feel they should be higher. But since we'd be aiming at regular updates, it could also be a motivator to get better for the next one that comes out. I don't really care where I end up on the list, but where ever I do, I'm going to work to not get passed up and to catch the people ahead of me.
And besides a few certain people that no longer really play, all the top players really look to help people get better so we can improve as a whole. They're not really content with just sitting on top without having to get better, so they want others to get better to push them to play their best. As I'm sure you've noticed.
The crew battles we do have more been for fun, so I don't really see those as being a huge influence in it. Also, a huge role in crew battles is counter picking the player already in since they're character locked so that's another reason I don't see them being a big determining factor. But if someone continually does really good in crew battles/friendlies/MMs etc then at least in my mind validates their improving skill level/tourney results. And I'm fine with putting characters next to names or whatever.
TL;dr speaking from personal experience and observations, I think that a PR can be a huge skill booster for our scene if done right and people have the right attitude.