I think the happy medium between Words of Wisdom's "if you haven't hacked you lose, only people with max stats and the best stuff need apply" and Smashchu2's dilemma is a simple match making system. Lots of games have them these days to prevent that exact kind of frustration. Hell Chess had a simple one it a very long time ago (Elo ratings), and tons of online games made use of that (starcraft for instance) so you could at least use Elo ratings to match make yourself. But now lots of games do it automatically.
If I player's characters drastically over power yours, then a match making system should be making sure you aren't playing them. That way more people can actually enjoy playing online rather than an incredibly small cadre of individuals who either hacked the game or invested 200 hours into maximizing their characters (only to get creamed by a hacker).
You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.
