I've heard the stories of getting mismatched with out-of-rank players, and it's now happened to me a couple of times. It's pretty frustrating.
How often does it happen to you?

For what I know, if you are matched against a higher rank, then you can only climb the ladder -I don't know if that is actually good to be honest-, coz your win rate vs a higher rank should be lower so if you lose then is not that big of a deal, the problem is if you lose vs a lower rank... then you are in trouble coz your win rate is expected to be high and therefore you are going to lose rank until the system asses your rank correctly, once that happens your rank should be very stable.

I'm not even sure what the rank symbols are anymore but I have to say you are correct by my view so far. I've only played a few games since the last patch and that kicked me back to beginner, which I still am from my lack of playing, and in none of the maybe ten games I've played I've never been matched up with another beginner.
I like to think that a compliment but it's not good matchmaking really.

Ditto