>seems like tons of Heralds and
>Fortress characters who are objectively terrible at PK end up
>living long, well respected lives, getting leader, progressing
>through religions, doing tons of area explore stuff, and all
>in all making a lasting impact on the game.

Some examples, excluding current characters:

Celebrimbor, Fortress, Captain, 21-62 with 35 mob deaths
Golron, Fortress, Marshall, 69-133 with 25 mob deaths
Angynn, Fortress, Cardinal, 14-48 with 19 mob deaths
Gulrom, Fortress, Captain, 28-33 with 34 mob deaths
Balgrum, Fortress, Cardinal, 22-47 with 19 mob deaths
Nian, Fortress, Prophet, 19-53 with 20 mob deaths
Mendecirith, Fortress, Cardinal, 21-75 with 46 mob deaths

I'm not saying each of these characters was "objectively terrible" at PK, but they sure lost more than they won.

As an aside, one common way of being "not terrible" at PK is to identify characters that either a. match up extremely poorly vs. whatever you're playing, and/or are b. played by someone at or below your own skill level, and then only fight those characters while avoiding everyone else.