Let me add that the PvP 'community' is broadly perceived by less active PvPers and non-PvPers as toxic, rude, and gate-keeping. That's for a good reason, especially in ranked! Gate-keeping is really important to maintaining (The admittedly already highly variable) the reasonable level of skill in Ranked that we have on SF.
But it's hard to get the balance between incentivizing ranked to a degree that you have a substantial player base against introducing way too many clueless conquest-seekers. The greater the rewards, the more players, but the more unhelpful idiots and bots you're going to find.
I suspect a population of ~50 active, vaguely decent PvPers is all you're likely to get for solo ranked without seriously disrupting the ecosystem. As others have noted, why would the devs put effort into this limited aspect of the game that so few players take advantage of? (When was the last time you heard about a GSF update, for example?)
Nip dead buds.
Unpopular opinion: arenas are dumb, bring back 8v8 ranked.