As I understand the issue is the rank is "unorderly" and the question is if that can be easily fixed. At some point "Apply Rank Above" was introduced. and there is also Remove Rank. This allows to rank in the order of display and avoid gaps. In 6.0.3 The ranking tries to prevent gaps if possible. See image below.

It is impossible to create custom automation for ranking as ranking is part of planning which does not provide any APIs.