I'm of the same mind as you are and I'm at Stardock (its CEO in fact).

Here's the problem:

Whenever we think the problem is solved, it works perfectly. Then it goes out and pow.

I have not only experienced what you have described, I have videoed it (much like the logs) and shown it to the team.

It's not as easy to "fix" as one might think. It's not "bugs" as much as false assumptions.

Let's go through your list and talk about how they happened:

1. No longer allowing 2 v 1 games.  We used to fill this with an AI player when someone would drop or abort prior to the game starting. But then people complained.  The real solution is to bring in another human player but doing so after the match has been generated requires an additional layer which is being done but originally it was believed (wrongly in hindsight) that an AI player would do the trick.

2. Accurately tracking and ranking games.  This works pretty well now but only as of v1.01.  So what happened? A lot of this code was bundled with the original network code that was licensed and when it blew up, so did everything else.  When we began replacing it with new code, this was one of the last things to be fixed.  It's taken care of now as far as I kow.

3. Allowing > 2 v 2.  This isn't as easy as one expects because you're going from 4 players to 6 players to get to 3 on 3 which, unfortunately, requires more bandwidth than a small % of users.  During the beta, nobody had a connection worse than 256 kilobit upload. But it turns out there are still a sizeable # of users on ISDN and low speed DSL.  To go above 2 v 2 we have to find a way to measure bandwidth.

4. Matchmaking based on record is already in.

5. 50% this is the same as item 1.

6. I have experienced this one myself. It appears to be related to people quitting (aborting) early for whatever reason during the hand off and the system doesn't know what to do.  

It's not that these features didn't "work" at release. They did.  The problem is that they worked with a particular set of users (the beta group) and didn't take into account things that are happening in "the real world".  Not that that is any kind of excuse, I'm just telling you what happened.

I've assigned developers from other projects to aid the existing developers at Gas Powered Games and Stardock to address these things.  I play the game myself and I share your frustration.

Is there anything in the works to measure bandwidth?  I'd love to play larger games, but I'm glad the decision to cap at 2v2 was made for now (who wants to have a 75% chance of terribly laggy games)... that said, I'd hope some research was being done to improve that. 

Thanks frog.  I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but it's not clear that's the goal.  I try to keep up on your posts, but I only know what you mention is being worked on and I didn't see that.  Glad to hear it, though!

frog, if you get a chance, would you look here http://forums.demigodthegame.com/355265?

Thank you Frog for the reply.  I apologize for some of the smartass comments I've made about this game.  

Based on your candid response/explanation I know you feel our pain and are doing what you can to correct it.

Lets face it, but this game is awesome. Which is why it's frusterating that it's not quite there yet. 

I'm excited for the day that I can simply click pantheon and "Fight!" and play a game in an hour.  Although this post was made out of semi-rage that the game doesn't work, the fact that you understand or care enough to even address these issues makes me confident that you guys'll work it out.  

From a person who was angry when I made this post--Thank you.

Pantheon is so hit or miss.  I spent 50 minutes trying to get into a Pantheon game that was 2v2.  Most of the time the game would launch and then "player has left the game" before it even starts.  I ended up with a game after 50 minutes and the person dropped midway through.  That drop is not a SD problem, but it should not take me 50 minutes to get into a game that is 2v2 in the first instance.  I even had a 2v0 game in that span.

Unfortunately no it isnt fixed. Last pantheon ( before 1.01 ) it seemed to work fine for me but now its broken again. I have a very similiar record in the two tournaments but in the first one i had 1326 exp and was rank 1 and now i have 99x exp ...

If it is fixed please post the formula with wich experience is calculated. Another example taken from the pantheon rankings page :

6 kstampy    1,980xp     15,040     2   2    176 minutes
7 baalz        1,966xp      27,505    80 24    3,424 minutes

So a player with 2 wins and 2 looses has more experience than 80-24 ? Its clearly broken so please dont go around saying "its taken care of "

May I suggest the game keep track of internal benchmark on performance. Most 3v3 games I play, I  emphasise the word 'most' here, ended up with a single or two person with simspeed 0 or lower; even those with perfect ping.

Ideally the match makring system should take care of 3 things: ping, simspeed and bandwidth

There are a lot of people ignoring recommended requirements on this game.

Also I kind of remember before this game was released someone said if soemone dropped out a game another fresh player could jump in with his own DG  (mapbe inherit gold and exp) over the AI on the game to keep it balanced? This would solve most issues.

Anyway, since it's clear I can't even answer an original person's question without a bunch of people jumping on me as if I have a magic wand to fix other people's code I'm bowing out.

If anyone needs me, I'll be over in the Elemental forums. 

may i get a refund ? because i wanna buy the retail version with the box ,i have it digital only,and now i wanna the box,because i love this game

The guy above is a little angry, but he makes some decent points.

If you play Pantheon, you don't quit out of it, because otherwise people see you as a gigantic quitting whore, and then you can't play custom either.  After that, you are left with essentially nothing except a good old single player matchup.

That represents my Pantheon experience too.  Custom games work like a charm now so I always return to that.  But playing Pantheon is like pulling teeth - painful to an extreme.  Something has to be broken with it.  I spent at least 50 minutes to an hour yesterday leaving Pantheon games that were 2v1 before the game even started.  Pantheon should be a play method that lets you get into a game within 5 minutes and matches you against people of equivalent skill level - not an exercise in frustration.