I totally agree with you. Sometimes I manage to get a couple of hours of free time and I would like to take a Sins game. But then I sign to ICO and for setting up a 4v4 or 5v5 game you can be easily 40 minutes waiting half time waiting for players and the other hal time deciding teams.

PUG is not an option. Better players are tired of always being the ones to choose and even then there's a lot of time wasted arranging the game.

For me the solution is very simple. Implement an ELO like system for the players in Sins like the chess players have. For every game, the rating of the contenders could be the mean of the ratings on each team.

This will have several benfits:

1. The host will have an "Even game"-button that will arrange teams based on the respective player ratings. No more chatting, no more discussions, just fill up the slots and start the game. That way the teams will be a mix of experienced and noob players in BOTH teams. 
2. Games could be created with a mininum rating entrance level. This way you'll benefit of:
   1. Experienced players could set up a match with the better players around. Noobs won't determine the outcome of the game.
   2. Smurfing will be severy discouraged. Your rating will be a hard to earn degree, so in order to play the most interesting games you should use always your true identity. No more double accounts.
3. There will be games of all levels of dificulty. Noobs could play without beeing harrased by unpolite (but better) players. This way the players base will grow up. We should keep an eye on the noobs too, not only on the better players.
4. Since your rating is your most valuable asset, games will be more cooperative, you'll be eager to help and to work as a team to win each game. The experience of game playing online will be better.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/356154

Why should IC do something about it if noone seems to take any interest in it..?

I think pugs are still very viable and I enjoy playing them because I feel that the teams are balanced or at least as balanced as they can get.  It also ends arguments over the team balance.

Being captain can be a large amount of pressure and you have to have some confidence in yourself because, as captain, you are your own first pick.  If your team loses will everyone blame you for having made bad picks?  You also have to feel confident that you stack up well against the other captain.  This problem is not new; in the Unreal Tournament community where 5-on-5 capture-the-flag pug matches are set up on Internet Relay Chat, a program called the pugbot manages the pug signup and team selection process, and if two people don't volunteer to be a captain in 30 or 60 seconds, it automatically picks two people based on an accumulated record of players' average draft pick positions (so that the captains are of about equal skill).

In spite of all that, pugs are still very popular and viable and it's difficult to find a 5v5 pug where someone isn't in the pug channel asking to be let into the game; people are breaking down the doors to get into them.

Triple post. Does this qualify for bonus karma?

wow..  four of the last five posts. thats so freakin epic.

Done. Next goal would be mega post, monster post and godlike post!

smurfing would be solved if the win loss ratio was for the entire account, and not just the player name?

just a stupid idea.