The thing is that the homogenisation of a platform's aesthetic is something that has happened over and over again in the past, so I don't think it's not completely speculative to point out that this also might happen to itchio, if there's a system that people can exploit. I don't even mean "cheating". Folks on YouTube who are using the same type of thumbnail layout aren't cheating, they're exploiting the system that YouTube has in place.
Now obviously I don't know how the rank is determined here, but the moment you start prioritising certain content over other's is the moment where you're making a statement about which type of content you generally prefer. The moment you do that, is the moment where people will start to build their things accordingly. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't provide people with information, but I just want you to keep in mind that this stuff has consequences that might not be all that obvious right now.
I do like Fenreliania's suggestion of changing the rank into a general assesement of how your visibility on the platform has changed over a set period of time. But also give people a way to opt out of analytics stuff. There are folks that don't want and don't need these information and it would be nice to have some say in that matter.