The elo gained or lost in very large team games is rather small. So a smurf has to only play 16v16 and his elo will evolve very slowly (more than a couple of games).
And even without smurfing, if you repeatedly play once "well" and once you "fool around" (without getting banned) you get a similar bad balance effect.
For team games I see this as a social issue. I will stop playing if there are people that annoy me too much, or will not even join if the game is too large, but that's a personal choice. There is no (technical) way that we can get a 16v16 and expect good balance and dedicated players. There is of course the option to get good enough to access palladium and try to play there - but of course games will be smaller (maximum palladium I have seen is 9v9).
