There is a little bit of prejudice against people who are lower ranks, and some will even go as far as to assume that low rank but high level = gilseller. And although it's not right, any time I'm a party leader and looking for members, I'll go with the higher rank person first (unless the other guy has a comment ... comments are better than rank in many cases) because it's just kind of an unwritten rule that people with lower rank are well .... (forgive me) noobs.
I don't know how to explain it really. I definitely don't point and laugh at people for their rank, but I have noticed - from other people as well as myself - that if there's a rank 6 seeking and a rank 3 seeking, the rank 6 gets invited first. Even as far down as the Dunes I see this sort of discrimination, and some people won't even invite people without subjobs. In the dunes, and pretty much up through Kazham, I will invite pretty much anyone because you know parties are going to be shitty 8 times out of ten anyway, but once we get moving towards the Citadel or the Nest, I look a lot harder at who I invite.
I'm the other way around. I spent time doing a lot of quests, missions, and other fun stuff while letting my leveling take a backseat. I have LS members who started playing a year and a half after me who have leveled higher than me. I would say play the game and enjoy yourself the way you want to play. I just know that there is some kind of discrimination against low-ranked players, which of course isn't right but it's there.
I should add that I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I've seen Rank 10s who were just awful, so it's not really even a valid stereotype anymore, but old habits die hard.