I don’t know about “first-rank”. To me it sounds like an RPG term (“first-rank mage”). But in the case of “first-rate” I see nothing weird about the answer “there were none this year”. When quality is lower, that’s what I’d expect, since I think about this term a bit like the A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 etc language proficiency certificates. They’re not assigned based on quantiles in current population, but based on a set of requirements applied to skill in absolute terms, not relative to skills of other people.