Seems like with the ranking system you have to wait until the series of races is over to know where you rank over the year or so.
If you hit the time standard, you know right away.
If I were someone like Paul Chelimo, I’d hit a 13:10 somewhere (if he can find a race), get it out of the way and focus on being ready for the US Trials.
In the meantime, you may get the slower athletes racing each other over and over to get ranked.
If the faster runners decline to participate in all of these races what value would the ranking system really have?
I can see a scenario where most medal favorites don’t even get ranked while half the field is compromised of runners with slower times than many that don’t qualify.
You may qualify running 13:25 while those running 13:14 don’t.