How Important Are Rankings now?

No. They aren't as important as they were.

It used to be an accomplishment/status thing. Now that there is a bunch of level 200s. No one can really be #1 of anything anymore.

I don't see on-rank hackers as the issue of why it's not important anymore. Even when they didn't take hackers off the ranks it was still something. You just had to keep track of who was legit, and memorize the names of the people you saw hacking. I don't see any current hackers in the Top 100 of Khaini, ex hackers? Maybe.

I also don't see how leeching could ruin the importance either. Leeching can only get you to lvl 120, which is considered low-level in the High-level community these days. It's not as big of an accomplishment as it was back then. You can easily get to 120 with all the new monsters these days. Leeching doesn't even really speed it up that much, if you know the right places to train normally.
It's not like people still have to level off Grims, or Gobies/Squids, to get to 120.

You could leech forever if you wanted to; no one's stopping you at 120.