Well, I’d say ranks could start off easy to obtain (say, under 1000 total fame to go from Bronze One to Steel One) but see requirements increase steeply. Again, living fame doesn’t matter, only fame on death, so it’d be fair to set up Platinum ranks as truly long-term goals (90K for Platinum One, following the formula).
Because of the difficulty involved in reaching the later ranks, higher-ranked players could be entitled to perks, like the ability to claim better account names than everyone else.