But is it worth the effort?

I think it's not worth the effort. All possible calculation options that do not take into account the position (or similar parameters) turn out to be quite cumbersome, difficult to understand intuitively, and inconvenient to use. In essence, Iron's option is optimal in terms of simplicity, clarity, and relative accuracy. If we assume that the average tournament does not have large gaps between the leader, then, given the rejection of the position, this method can be left as a working one... No "simple" modifications can be applied to this calculation option, because we immediately move towards the same problems that we want to avoid. But when there is a gap between the leader, there is a bias towards an unjustified lowering of the rating of all participants except for the first place. Moreover, the players who are higher in the tournament table suffer the most. A simple example: Day 1 - 100 points Day 10 - 10 points Day 100 - 1 point. The gap between the first and second place is equal to the gap between the second and third place (ten times). But in this case, an unreasonably small number of rating points is awarded for second place... From the point of view of the total rating, the results of the second and third players are practically equalized, which is not actually the case... Moreover, regardless of the number of players in the tournament, all other results will be between 1 and 10 points. And the reason is chance, namely the appearance of a strong player in the tournament. If he had not played, the result would have been different: Day 10 - 100 points Day 100 - 10 points. As you can see, there are no significant changes for the outsider, while a relatively strong player is highly dependent on a random combination. Moreover, this effect always exists, it just manifests itself to a lesser extent in the absence of a gap in the results. If we ignore this point, we can stop the discussion about the rating until better times.