Speaking from experience, you're no less thrown into the deep end if you get a lordship after two years then if you get one after two weeks. As it stands now, being a Knight doesn't prepare you in any way for a lordship because there are virtually no shared mechanics. Being Steward might help a tiny bit.
My point was more that a lot of players now are being thrown into positions of power with only a shallow grasp of the game and the roles they're being asked to fill. The mechanics aren't that difficult but people are rising without any sense of what's expected of them or being able to interact well with their fellow players.
The hierarchy in each realm should look more like a pyramid. Lots of knights on the bottom, fewer lords in the middle, then the council and ruler above. Nowadays though hierarchy is top heavy in many realms. Lords and council members can outnumber knights. That can't be healthy from a standpoint of integrating players into the game and spreading around knowledge and experience. I've seen more than one person appointed General simply because no-one else was interested and when called upon to make a city assault, they haven't known about siege engines.
Players shouldn't join BattleMaster and immediately find themselves at the top of the hierarchy in a matter of weeks. Fair enough, we don't want a return to the times when you could wait years to finally find yourself a lordship but it has gone too far in the opposite direction now. That's one of the reasons why it will be a good thing to lose a continent or two and condense the existing player base. Hierarchy will function more like it should.
