Also, from what I can tell, the server has a large presence of people who do play Prophunt 'competitively'. To remove these ranks would alienate a large amount of your audience on the server. I don't play Prophunt often, but I have a hard time believing that ranks in a gamemode can break friendships or whatever.
And as I stated earlier, ranks or not, there will be a group of players who do take the game seriously and that will talk down on others. I would advise ignoring those who whine and bitch, because they'll do it regardless of rank or lack thereof.