The forced 50% w/r does exist on paper in solo comp

[taleswapper-11189]

Also, as to your point that the matchmaker does a poor job because OW is essentially too complex for the system to accurately measure player skill, Cuthbert is again opposed to that idea:

@Cuthbert-11649

I am not actually saying this. I think that MMR does a virtually perfect job of determining players’ skill, relative to other players at their SR level. But I think the purpose of determining relative skill is, as you say, nefarious. It’s being done to effect handicapping without players’ knowledge or consent. I have argued and proven in my polls that the vast majority of players do not consent to being analyzed and handicapped this way.

Cuthbert thinks the matchmaker measures player skill virtually perfectly. It’s just that he also thinks that it perfectly makes for balanced matches. And this combination thwarts players from climbing because they will always have something close to a 50% win rate. What Cuthbert thinks should happen is what you describe as the problem (lopsided matches), which would allow the best players to have something more like 90% win rates, because he assumes he would be one of those best players.