I'm fairly new around here, so I have no clue what these rankings are. What were they used for?

Do you mean the rankings from past MKs like wins in a row? Like how you beat the game or lost with wins under your belt and then your asked to put in you name? If so that would be a great idea to do so with PS2 on the gamespy with site, so poeple can see who are the greatest fighters at the time, same with Xbox live have sort of offical human vs human ranking system.

YES, have the fastest time beat in Arcade or somthing like that and then it will ask for your initials like MK4 did it... and then it will show 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, and so on...