While I agree with your main point, if what you say is true, won't it be mostly your fault?
I mean sure, for every level, there are a small handful of people that are over powered and ruin the experience for everyone else, some are ptw, some are level campers. But overall, for any level range(sage bracket), there would be at most like 5-10 of those, except of course the top most bracket which have lots of ptw.
If over 80% of the player in a sage is stronger than you, then chances are you are just weak. Because even if you are unfortunate and happen to be at the bottom of your bracket (in term of level, as it is now), there are weak characters (some of which are alt filler/slaves or zombies) whom you should be able to beat in terms of power even if they are higher level.
And besides, even if they sort it by power, like they should, instead of level, you can still be misfortune and be at the bottom of the bracket. So if that's the cause of your problem, nothing can really help you. As it is, people who are hurt by the level sort are those who are in the top 30% but not top 10% of their current bracket.
But of course, you could be exaggerating. I won't really know.