So I haven't had that much time lately to play halo reach online but when I do have time I typically just play my three rounds of Arena. I figured this would be the best way to play with and against people of my own skill. So far though I almost always get a group that either isn't playing right (Not prioritising power weapons, not playing as a team) or we go against a group that is way better than us skill wise. 
 
I haven't been put in a division yet so maybe it gets better then but so far it's really getting on my nerves that more that 2/3 of the games I play on arena suck. On top of that sometimes my team mates are so bad I end up with a much lower score than I normally get so I have to play more games to average it out. 
 
As of right now I miss Halo 3's rank up system even though that had it's problems. What is your guys' experiences with Arena because it's left me wanting.

Well you probably just need to play a bit more to get your trueskill up to the level where you start getting into reasonable even-matched, competitive games.
 
But yes Arena sucks balls and I'd kill for them to bring back the H2 system.

Yeah I feel arena was a great idea but it wasn't implemented correctly. Right now you get a better rating for kill whoring instead of playing as a team member, especially since you pretty much need to take down all of the opponents shield to even get a assist point. I really think halo 2 had the best ranking system, it wasn't perfect (having to go like 10 wins in a row to rank up at level 40) but it at least felt like the guys above level 40 were extremely good compared to everyone being level 50 at halo 3

Agree Arena Ranking sucks, moreover my issue is that there is Radar on. and people know that to win you need to whore shotguns and swords around the corner crouching. Bungie said it was a bug, and the radar less Pro variant will be brought back for November. so thank god.

I got ranked in Bronze last season, but I have no motivation to do it anymore. It's completely pointless, and I hate the DMR so that's a major turn off for me.

I play like 3 matches a day of ranked and it pisses me off to no end. It's either a good close match, or its spawncamping with the sword/sniper/bazooka.
Some maps are just too small and filled with power weapons to make it really fair.
 
I like shooting in my shooters, not running my goddamn ass off to a power weapon (and in that effect, making the other armor skills pretty useless since it's a marathon to the weapons anyway!).
Shuffle some of the locations, remove some of em, adjust spawn points and it's all good.

Ok awesome so it isn't just me having this problem! So do you guys just play Social instead? Or do any of you have enough friends with the game that you can just play custom games?
 
@R3Qui4M: I agree that the radar being on is really the main issue at this point. It just promotes kill whoring and just camping one area to win.  
 
Imo they should change it to slayer pro (without radar), Make the power weapon spawns a little less frequent and actually find me team mates who know what they are doing. Just copy some of what MLG has done with the maps will fix most of the issues that I have. I hope they do fix it at some point because I think a game mode that I can actually play with and against people of my own skill would not only make me a better player, but also be more fun.