I can understand the combining of the Competition Leader, Event Staff, and Article Editor to be made into one forum rank (moreso only Competition Leader and Event since Article Editor are not components involving forum-based events) as they could be seen as the same when you look at the core of each rank. Ultimately I have no issue with the current set of banners as I'm almost 100% positive that they are not causing a strain to the forum and thus I don't mind keeping the ranks as they are right now.
Now for the second point of this thread is one I have to disagree with. For starters these kinds of banner help point out the members that are in fact part of the site staff and try to make topics on a daily basis. Not only do the sites gain readership, but it also gains traffic and thus help the site maintain its activity and reputation. Wiki Contributors also help in the wiki (I don't care if the wiki is stupid, inactive, whatever reason they want to make up the point is the wiki is an important factor of the site) though I think the Wiki Scribes are doing a thing where if those that don't continue to edit are stripped from their rank and I can agree with that system. One last thing I want to argue for is Webmaster. I honestly don't know why are people so, for a lack of a better word, "upset" with this particular banner. You could say it's pointless, but in reality this shows that these know an extreme amount of knowledge for running a website, perhaps even more than Admins since their jurisdiction can only go as far as the forum while a Webmaster is knowledgeable in all aspects in general.
TL;DR - Combining Competition Leader and Event Staff (still unsure about Article Editors) as one forum rank is one I don't mind seeing it happen, but it isn't necessary to me. Removing non-forum color banners such as Site Staff, Wiki Contributor, Webmaster, etc. is one I disagree with simply because their is value behind said ranks.