anybody with 1 year of AH and some self control can be ranked overall #1
fighter #1 needs some experience as you need to find the best spots to pick without danger of higher cons, and a decent aiming and E managment
attack # requires some vulching for the k/d, and some factory pilaging, the best is to bomb a gv spawnpoint.
bomber #1 needs some factory bombing, never go for hangars at it would make your hit% go down, and some milkrunning on early war to get the base captures
vehicule #1 requires some great spawn camping, and some rockets on a town with a PT to get the hit% on objects.
Rank is really lame...when you see pple like mayfly it makes me want to puke.
I personnally go for top 100 just to show I'm a veteran and to be able to get the cvs back from the noobs, the only ride I do just for score is the PT boat trick. I respect "pure" rank, the rest is a joke, shawk is a joke, CLANG is a noob who learned to rearm and vulch in a typhie. Lazer is pretty impressive as he often flies defensive in P38 and still manages to get a great k/d, not to mention he shot me down a few times in 1V1

Why do we have rank ? it doesn't reflect actual skill (the hit% is a good indicator, but the MG guys are spoiled with it), its just a combinaison of stupid and incomprehensible equations. It would be great if we could earn medals by our achievements (like in the future TOD), thus giving us advantages like reductions on the perk cost, and special channels for strategic decision making.
Just my 2 cents.