For the first 10 games you do not have a rank. That means you can fight vs anyone from rang 10.000 to rank 1. Elo is established after you first 10 games...
Yes which can land you a ladder of 34 or 3000 (I've had both from different smurf accounts). You are able to keep high ladder rank because you get good teammates vs low ladder opponents and low ladder/constant ladder sink from poor players on your team despite the same skill level in both situations. Low ladder rank basically solidifies poor teammates and makes it impossible to climb ladder.
I do not care about ladder rank for any reason besides the fact that higher ladder players are rarely AFK or rage quit after 2 minutes (although I can't really blame that so much since poor ladder position just breeds contempt for the game. You can only handle so many games of doing 3-4x damage, kills and caps before you really start getting tired.
I know the only solution is to play 2v2 (or really 1v1) but there is no reason why 4v4 should be THIS bad.