Interesting....
So long as a rank 1 chest has a (if even slim) chance at something nice I think this could go a long way. However, if a Rank 1 chest is gated to never produce a value above "x" amount.... while a Rank 10 will "always" have something high value I can see that driving away a LOT of new players.
That being said, I can see how the changes ARE needed. I was watching the recently released reward cards. They were run out of print pretty quick. And I found myself thinking that a potion or some DEC as a reward option at the end of a daily quest, instead of a card now and then, would be neat. ..well low and behold y'all were thinking that too. heh