Admirable Features: The Brew/Duel Chats

As a counter to the disappointment posts, here is a series posting the things Pottermore did RIGHT, and evaluate the growth the site has had. Now, to keep things honest, I will include features past and present, give some insight on them and try and see if they're still good or not. So with that, the Brew and Duel chats.
Now this is interesting, because if anything, areas to chat on Pottermore isn't necessarily a "new" thing. This update is, for all intensive purposes, rather mundane. So why is it good? The answer there would be role players and trolls. You see, after beta ended, there was a large influx of role players. This has been the catelyst of many problems on Pottermore and was the first shift. This is not to blame role players, so much as it is to acknowledge a shift in how the site was used. Prior to the shift the role play was tamer, possibly due to the far more intimate nature of Pottermore, and how it is much, much calmer than it was prior to the public opening. Pottermore let more people in and with that came more trolls, inappropriate conduct and the like, as it is inevitable and it is indeed the internet. With that, people earning points, making comments in the common rooms, they were more likely to be reported, either by zealots coming into the house to be a saboteur, trolls or role players who believed that they had a greater right to the common room than any other person (while rare, this still does happen due to Pottermore's dismissal of a different feature, one that I will write about later).

So naturally, people earning points, and shoved out of their own common rooms were a bit miffed to say the least, this would lead to various actions on both sides (including alleged efforts in ravenclaw to report any non-earning role player upon posting). And to that I do recall personally saying "GIVE THE ROLE PLAYERS THEIR OWN SPACE! LET THEM ROLE PLAY SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU SAY IT'S OK TO!" The interesting note is... Pottermore instead gave the point earners their own rooms as, while it didn't address all concerns (and still does not for the most part) it allows people to help one another, to chat civilly, and to share their interests with like minded people. The only shortfall of this is that it is public to all houses, and that house-exclusive boards would allow a bit more confidence and motive in helping/finding new, talented players for all the houses.

However this isn't as important as the other feature of the chat, the implicit rankings. This is a rather odd addition that serves a few purposes, and I will probably go into more detail for the publication of duel averages later. In short, duel chat got a duel average published, and potions posted the total potions one had brewed. It is an odd addition, and brings back memories of the "rankings" by Pottermore in beta, that allowed one to see where they stacked up. Where it's fun to see in brewing to determine the expertise of an individual, Dueling it opens up strategy much more as it allows people to try and seek out individuals of similar skill, avoiding the occasional slaughter that open duels can be. This is a wonderful user feature that could help new sorts further, and it is always comforting (and I would be remiss not to mention this) that there is an unwritten rule that one does not pick on users that are far beneath them in average, and while the burden is placed in part by the weaker users by hitting deny, it's a good sign of fair play and honesty that the houses agree on this methodology when talking in the duel chat.

So what do you think of this feature? Is it one of the better you've seen, or just another meh feature on a meh site?