No blue, it wouldn't be going back a step. You would have all the same priveledges, however, b5 would actually go to builder.
This rank overhaul is because of how ranks are treated as a status symbol, and put hassle on OPs to judge, and rank people. It hasn't been so bad lately because of bukkit being slow to release a stable update, but a lot of the time, OPs have to constantly cater to players mostly just for a promotion. And when they don't, and things are busy, sometimes they either neglect that duty, or half-arsedly decide to promote just because of hassle (I'm not blaming OPs for it, I've done it myself... when a player badly wants a promotion, but I'm not really feeling up to reviewing properly, I'll just give a pass more easily sometimes).
All I'll say is, don't consider it as going down a notch, Honoured is just being treated as a different rank completely (how it used to be, except governed a bit more strictly). The whole actual reason that trusted was introduced was because too many players had been getting Honoured who didn't deserve it, frankly, due to requesting every OP they saw, even when told no. These changes are a result of players playing too many rank games, and expecting to be promoted through all/ most ranks as standard, when actually some ranks are supposed to only show if a player is OP-worthy.
I have one last suggestion by the way, which is actually meant as a way to abolish ranks as a theory entirely (ranks would still be in place, but you would be more transparent... so you wouldn't get people being labelled as "builder" or "honoured").
This is because, as is pretty obvious from blue's response, even with this proposed new rank system, the ranks it provides would still give a sense of "labelling", if that makes sense... Players who know the old rank system will feel that having their rank changed to "builder" will be a downgrade, setting them all in the same group. Is there a way to make it show up only their name instead? By that, I mean if a player is guest, they could still be titled as a guest and have that show up, but players who had made a house would just have no title in front of their name (as well as this, knowing as ranks would still have to be in place for permissions reasons, the rank could probably be "player" as opposed to "builder", just to get rid of this sense of grouping people). There could still be Honoured and Architect, but rather than having a full rank title, it could just show up as a coloured "H" in front of their name, and something similar with Architect/ Honoured Architect.
Here's the shortened version of my proposed ranks...
Guest - has logged into the server
Player - has built one building, showing they wish to become part of the community (their rank is not displayed in chat)
Honoured - same as proposed by fire (rank displayed as H)
Architect - same as proposed by fire (rank displayed as A)
Honoured Architect - mix of Architect and Honoured (rank displayed as HA, or similar)
Really, this is to try and reduce any sore feelings... yet still offers some sort of goal, and recognition.
Edit - I understand a lot of people have put a lot of effort into ranking with their buildings, and the whole sore feeling will be because of a feeling of loss for their effort. I'm not disregarding this, since before OP, I tried to put in quite a lot of effort myself, to gain recognition, and a feeling of accomplishment, but really, why can't this be gained without the need for ranks? A rank that means little, apart from the fact you've played for a couple of weeks, and made buildings doesn't exactly count for that much. At this point, that's essentially what the ranks are, which if anything is undermining for the effort people have had to put in, in the past, when those ranks are taken less seriously. Hell, I remember when b3 was a big(ish) deal in terms of difficulty to obtain. I'd write more, but yet again I'm sleepy, and I think I'm beginning to ramble... =P
This rank overhaul is because of how ranks are treated as a status symbol, and put hassle on OPs to judge, and rank people. It hasn't been so bad lately because of bukkit being slow to release a stable update, but a lot of the time, OPs have to constantly cater to players mostly just for a promotion. And when they don't, and things are busy, sometimes they either neglect that duty, or half-arsedly decide to promote just because of hassle (I'm not blaming OPs for it, I've done it myself... when a player badly wants a promotion, but I'm not really feeling up to reviewing properly, I'll just give a pass more easily sometimes).
All I'll say is, don't consider it as going down a notch, Honoured is just being treated as a different rank completely (how it used to be, except governed a bit more strictly). The whole actual reason that trusted was introduced was because too many players had been getting Honoured who didn't deserve it, frankly, due to requesting every OP they saw, even when told no. These changes are a result of players playing too many rank games, and expecting to be promoted through all/ most ranks as standard, when actually some ranks are supposed to only show if a player is OP-worthy.
I have one last suggestion by the way, which is actually meant as a way to abolish ranks as a theory entirely (ranks would still be in place, but you would be more transparent... so you wouldn't get people being labelled as "builder" or "honoured").
This is because, as is pretty obvious from blue's response, even with this proposed new rank system, the ranks it provides would still give a sense of "labelling", if that makes sense... Players who know the old rank system will feel that having their rank changed to "builder" will be a downgrade, setting them all in the same group. Is there a way to make it show up only their name instead? By that, I mean if a player is guest, they could still be titled as a guest and have that show up, but players who had made a house would just have no title in front of their name (as well as this, knowing as ranks would still have to be in place for permissions reasons, the rank could probably be "player" as opposed to "builder", just to get rid of this sense of grouping people). There could still be Honoured and Architect, but rather than having a full rank title, it could just show up as a coloured "H" in front of their name, and something similar with Architect/ Honoured Architect.
Here's the shortened version of my proposed ranks...
Guest - has logged into the server
Player - has built one building, showing they wish to become part of the community (their rank is not displayed in chat)
Honoured - same as proposed by fire (rank displayed as H)
Architect - same as proposed by fire (rank displayed as A)
Honoured Architect - mix of Architect and Honoured (rank displayed as HA, or similar)
Really, this is to try and reduce any sore feelings... yet still offers some sort of goal, and recognition.
Edit - I understand a lot of people have put a lot of effort into ranking with their buildings, and the whole sore feeling will be because of a feeling of loss for their effort. I'm not disregarding this, since before OP, I tried to put in quite a lot of effort myself, to gain recognition, and a feeling of accomplishment, but really, why can't this be gained without the need for ranks? A rank that means little, apart from the fact you've played for a couple of weeks, and made buildings doesn't exactly count for that much. At this point, that's essentially what the ranks are, which if anything is undermining for the effort people have had to put in, in the past, when those ranks are taken less seriously. Hell, I remember when b3 was a big(ish) deal in terms of difficulty to obtain. I'd write more, but yet again I'm sleepy, and I think I'm beginning to ramble... =P