I'm not sure if a total "no range"-approach would be good either - sometimes that's what a specific player might want, but at other times that same player might want to be matched with somebody near his/her own skill level, even if this would lead to longer waiting times. So perhaps one possible solution would be that players would be allowed to set their own range "scope" where opponents would be "picked" from.
For example, let's say that there's two players - the "first" player has a rating of 150, and the "second" has a rating of 200. If the first player would set his scope at 50, he'd be matched with anybody within the range of 100-200, assuming that his potential opponent also has a scope that "encompasses" players with a rating of 150. So, if the second player would have a rating of 200 and a scope of 50, he's range would be 150-250 and hence, he could be matched with the first player. On the other hand, if this second player would instead like to be matched with people closer to his own skill level, he could reduce his scope to, say, 20, giving him a range of 180-220, and this time he wouldn't be matched with the first player.
Of course, the deeper issue here is that on the test server, the rating of an individual isn't necessarily an accurate measure of that player's real skill level, since people try out all kinds of stuff that ends up lowering their rating. Perhaps if, in addition to the scope-approach, there'd be a toggleable option to play unranked QM games (and the other player would have to have this option enabled too for a match-up to be made), people could be matched within their skill level and try out creative ideas without losing any rating in the process. Whether people who'd actively use these kind of settings would be able to find opponents quickly is another question though. (Going into the Shadowera IRC chat-room to ask for custom game players might work pretty much to the same end.)
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