Your KDR does not determine your worth.

I have always been a support player.  Even as far back as Tribes I felt more comfortable laying turrets and maintaining base defense, rather than running around and raking up huge scores capping flags or getting tons of kills.  As it turns out, I'm still that kind of player.

I would much rather hang back and be support, rather than go charging in at the front of the line.  I've only ever had one character that was a legitimate tank (even my Warrior back at 60 only tanked on the Garr fight).  I normally hang back and heal or try to do ranged DPS.  In PvP I like to get my hands dirty and be up close and personal, but that's an entirely different matter.  When it comes to FPS games I do the same.  I am much more comfortable hanging back and with others rather than running and gunning my way through the map.  I have competed at medium-ranged tiers in a few things and even taken a trip out to CPL before.  I've never been super pro, but I've always tried to remain an asset to my team and sacrifice myself and my score for the good of the team and the win.

I've never been a scoring beast and I rarely put up huge numbers.  I am normally sitting in the middle of the pack and have done all I could to keep my teammates up and scored a couple kills in the process.  It isn't the most exciting thing to do, but it keeps me in the game.  Back in America's Army I enjoyed going through the training so that I could be a medic or a sniper.  It was fun.  I got a whole lot of different things accomplished and I felt proud when I was done.  Sure all I did was pay attention and answer questions, but it was something that I enjoyed and something that I felt added an extra amount of depth to the game.  You had to dedicate your time in a different way and then you could be useful to your team.

I think that it is great that BF3 offers this kind of gameplay, but the current system of leveling is just too ridiculous.  This forces people to get and play the game early or get stuff getting buttfucked.  People of much higher ranks with many more unlocks than you have an obvious advantage.  While I am all for taking my lumps, this is... a bit extreme.

I hope that in the future they tier the servers or offer intelligent matchmaking.  In the future I also hope that people same the KDR banter for TDM.  Defend or attack the objective and do what you have to for the win.  It's just that simple.  In games built around teamwork there shouldn't be anything else to be concerned with.