I argue that it’s too modular and scales too slowly to really be worth trying. Rather, just cut the fat and have four Havocs that we can freely choose:
Light: One modifier, manageable.
Medium: Two modifiers, challenging.
Heavy: Three modifiers, brutal.
Suicide: Four modifiers, insane.
The same mistake happened in Weaves. You had it perfectly in Quickplay with the five difficulties, but then you went and added a bazillion ranked weaves. It makes it impossible to find a full four-player party for the level you want.
I’d take the bet they will not follow your suggestion, nor any forumer’s call requesting a more pragmatic difficulty selection, and they will let their mode die.
If Fatshark is determined to simply adjust the 40 ranks we already have, then there is no reason it shouldn’t just be a 5 tier difficultly selection as you suggested.
I thought the entire purpose of the arbitrary numbered ranking system in Havoc was for Fatshark to be able to add as many extra arbitrary ranks as needed to make the game sufficiently difficult at the highest level. But of course, that would make too much sense, and instead they decided to adjust the ranks we already had.