Another easy fix without a full removal would be an option to have your leaderboard filtered by your friends list or by characters currently online.

This would keep the sort of fun aspects of seeing where you rank, but only among ppl you care about. Let's face it, the leaderboards are really only fun when it's got ppl you know involved. A static list of 5 guys you don't know that set records when the rules were different is not very compelling.