1. The developer's name for it is "Heat Scale," but "ghost heat" is the common term used by players. Also note that many similar weapons are linked together, so the Large laser, Large Pulse Laser, and ER Large Laser all count towards the same threshold. Firing with a 0.5 second delay gets around it which is the delay between weapons set to chainfire mode.
2. You are probably playing with players at a lower skill level right now who seem to care about such things more. At higher levels, you probably won't see this much, if at all. I never do and I'm not anywhere near the best players.
3. Short answer is no. It doesn't work that way.
Long answer is that the Matchmaker only cares if your team wins or loses, not how much damage or kills you had (though obviously that should have an impact on the outcome of the match, just not definitively). Each player has an Elo score, one for each weight class (light, medium, heavy, assault). Starting value is below average and I believe is locked until after your first 25 matches. When picking players for a match, it tries to pick ones with similar Elo scores. Then the average of the two teams is computed and the higher average is predicted to win. If that team does, in fact win, the Elo scores of each player change slightly or not at all but if the team expected to win doesn't, then the Elo scores of the actual winning team go up and the scores of the actual losing team go down. How much the scores change is based on how large the difference in the average Elo scores between the two teams was, The Elo system works most effectively over the course of many matches (like hundreds) so don't expect it to give you perfect matches all the time. Winning streaks and losing streaks can and do happen. This is a complex game with many variables affecting the outcome of a battle.
Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 24 March 2015 - 12:37 AM.