Well, my biggest concern was that slow play was being identified as being a hostile act, or bad behavior, (because the person was losing), when in reality, if the person is losing, they probably have a bad hand, and might be just desperately trying to figure out how to win a game with a very confusing hand.
Now, a more experienced player might be faster to figure out a solution, or to just accept that the game will be lost, finish it up and move on. But if you are inexperienced, you don't know this yet. So you keep trying.
This said, I understand your concern. It has been voiced by another guest earlier in this post. I can now see that matching a beginner with a black meeple can have negative effects. Maybe (as we are now bigger) it is time to figure out a better method of matching people together. I have to say that the problem is not straight forward. We want friends to be able to play together. If you are an experienced player and want to play with a newbie friend, how do you play together if we don't allow white meeple to play with black meeple? Of course there is a solution to every problem, but I am wary of complexifying the interface and the logics behind it.
Maybe other players have an idea on how to improve the matching system? Let us know if you do!
Regarding this part about whether to try to match ranks or not - make it optional.
Make a check box, similar to the way people can choose to make a private table or not. This way, both experienced people who don't want to risk losing a lot of points because they lost to a lower ranked person, and inexperienced players who are intimidated by high ranked players, can choose to only have games with people close to their own range.
If a person doesn't care one way or the other, they still have the option to have a completely open table.
That should make everyone happy.