See, this right here is what I hate about the AI matches. Some people work and put in the time and effort to actually play the game themselves and then lose out on rewards because they went to people who avoided playing the game in order to watch a video of the computer playing it for them.
If people want to use their AI to grind out skins and gear for themselves, then fine. There should always be zero points awarded for it towards any kind of ranking or competitions, though.
I completely agree with you. I understand the point of AI vs. AI team battles, but enabling AI in ToT - particularly to the point where it gets ranked against real players - feels overly rewarded. At least the tower bonus penalty for using AI is appropriately harsh and it's uncommon to reach even the first bonus. I only see the AI win all three bonuses on boss fights if it wins on the first couple of tries. So you certainly win more souls and hearts if you avoid using the AI. And AI use shouldn't count toward weekly rankings IMHO.
Personally, I find the ToT so un-fun that I'd rather not play them and let the AI suffer while I do chores. It sounds like the patch makes ToT easier, but my problem with them wasn't their difficulty. It's that I don't find modifiers fun or all that helpful for mastering skills that would be useful for online play. I wouldn't be AI-grinding ToT if it weren't for ToT-exclusive skins, gear, and animations. And I suspect that other AI users are in the same boat.
My recommendation: allow ToT-exclusives to also be unlocked through ranked online play. That way solo players and online warriors each have access to the same rewards and can play the way they want.