I don't play that much due to time, boredom with the game, and the inability of other players to click the Surrender button. My one and only account is 5-6, but I've played about 30 games online (won over half). I still consider myself a beginner, though I know the basics pretty well.

But what I don't like is all the smurfs

There's awesome players like JJ who I played once in a team game. He logs in as JJ with all his wins so we know what we're getting into. I played him to learn, certainly not to win.

Then there's guys who admit to smurfing with a team whisper and they're willing to help out a weak team facing other smurfs or guys like JJ. That's fine with me. Experts mixed with noobs, on both teams is great (if the noobs listen).

Then there's these idiots who keep making new accounts and specifically entering games called Noob, Beginner, and Medium skill. Their records are like 0-0, with 1 game played or something. There's noobs out there who don't understand these guys have like 200-500 games under their belt under other accounts, so they eventually surrender to them, saying: Wow, you're good, I really suck.

Lot of these noobs never come back, so essentially the community is eating itself.

I'm not saying new accounts are bad. Make as many as you want. Just don't use them to prey on beginners. Don't hide or even deny either. The denial part is the most ridiculous.

I consider myself much better in 2 other online games, enough to call myself a veteran. If I know I'm surrounded by noobs, I leave and find another game more challenging. I don't creep back with another account. It's just not fun and kind of dishonourable.

I was just in a game where a 3-6 record (11 game) noob quit, saying "Damn I always lose. I'm leaving to play blah-blah-whatever. Screw this." Well, it's no wonder he's losing because I watched him get smurfed bad by a 0-0 player who ate the map rapidly and knew exactly what he was doing. Probably happened to the noob a few times. Happened to me at least 4-5 times.

A matchmaking system might be a good idea, there's always the chance that stardock will add this in their new version of impulse. They did hint at such a feature.

I don't think we have a large enough player-base to support a proper match-making system.  There are few enough people in the lobby at any given time that you can actually sift through everyone's record by hand.

I've seen both sides of the "newb" issue.  On the one hand, you do get some people who just won't listen or do irrational things.  A good example was someone who was in the pocket and decided to build lots of static defense while his allies were getting creamed on either side of him due to lack of feed.  The guy didn't have a bad record at all (13-1, something like that), so we had all presumed he was a smurf... turns out he was a comp stomper and never bothered to tell us he was new.  Actually we nearly won that; if I got some feed I could have held the suicide position until their front lines fell.  Once my position fell, our advance on the front lines reversed and the game was pretty well decided.

Then there's the other side where the guy says "I'm new, what do I do?" and my ally immediately replies "leave, the AI will do better".  It certainly wasn't helpful to have a newb there (I was pocket, but had to fleet to protect him), but it was even more annoying to have an AI there after my ally chased him off with verbal abuse.  I actually ended up saving his homeworld eventually, and it would have been a very useful experience for him to have worked with me on that. 

So, the key from the newbie's perspective is to keep an open attitude and make your skill level clear to your allies, who will help you out.  From the veteran's perspective, give the guys a break and actually do help them out.

People who complain after the fact are just whiners.  If you've got a real complaint, lodge it early.  Shouldn't matter whether you're winning or losing.  Now, to be fair, some times you're busy on your own front then you look back and see someone in the pocket who masses static defense, but if you're just playing the blame game after the fact that's another matter.

The real problem is stacked teams, when you have a newbie and a smurf and it's just a guess as to which that 0-0 player is.  Not all newbies are bad, and not all smurfs are awesome, but it still slants games when you're trying to get a fairly even skill split.  I don't have a problem with smurfs or newbies; I have a problem when one team gets a smurf and the other gets a newb as their last pick, and no one knows till the game is already underway that the teams were unintentionally stacked.

Double post!  Yay!