I follow the gandalf-moral code about showing/using your op powers. you don’t have to go all big and flashy or act superior just because you so horribly outclass everyone else. I consider the need to show off to be a weakness, because it’s linked to vanity, which is also a weakness, as far as I’m concerned. Gandalf was virtually as strong as, or even stronger, than sauron, but he didn’t give in to the weaknesses of vanity that so many darksiders have, that so many darksiders are ultimately destroyed by :3

I would disagree with your rating system; It’s incomplete.
I would rate those who *can’t* make use of magical tools (staffs, staves, wands, scrolls, wands, stones, books, etc.) the bottom (not even 4th rate)
The next up would be those who can instinctually read spellbooks/scrolls but not use *any* magic amplifiers 4th rate, for lack of power
They are tied with those who *can* use magical amplifiers (even the strongest typing of those, the augmented staff) but not read magical runes (books, scrolls, etc.). These are 4th rate because they lack knowledge.
3rd rate magi have the knowledge and are the ones locked into using *one* type of magic amplification tool (this rating of magi can be mostly defined by Mr. Al’s rating system, filling in the blanks using each added magical tool’s approximate power to determine where they would be compared to the mentioned tools(this is assuming that the wizard using his hands could use a tool to amplify his powers and has chosen not to))
2nd rate magi have the knowledge, are *not* locked into one type of magic amplification tool, and can *make* such tools (if one of these fought a 3rd rate wizard w/o using magically amplification they would be effectively a 3rd rate magi)
A 1st rate Wizard has made him-/her-/it-self into the ultimate magical amplification tool without sacrificing his knowledge. If a magi loses himself in making herself a magical tool, they lose their right to be called a Magi of the First Order (remember a magi with power but without knowledge is 4th rate; a magi locked to *one* tool is at most 3rd rate, even if that tool is the magi itself; and a Magi that cannot create tools from her own knowledge anymore has lost his capability as a 2nd rate wizard).
In a sense becoming the ‘Demon Lord’ is a path to becoming a 1st rate Magi, that destroy’s the capabilities of more 2nd rate Magi than it does create 1st rate Magi.
(Ever wonder why a story’s ‘final boss’ becomes more mortal upon gaining ‘ultimate power’? Those wizards have lost requisite parts of themselves to gain that ‘final form’, making something not only more destructive but also overall weaker than who they were before when they were balanced within themselves. This made them ‘final boss’s’ harder to survive, but *far* far easier to kill)