I think the problem is that folks will usually lose interest at some point so there has to be small goals and structure to the battles/ranks to keep the progress/purpose going.
I don't think one on one mentoring will work due to the above reason. I think to start, we could scrap all the team forums for now then just create one new forum call the "PSC Workshop". Where we have all the pros and admins of PSC in that forum then allow one or two newbies that really want to learn/get help, allowed in to the workshop. This way the whole team of PSC gurus can help those one or two newbies. It makes less pressure/work for the mentor as it's a combined effort and it would be more beneficial to the newbie.
I'm not sure what criteria we would use to determine what newbie gets into the workshop but I'm sure they would competitively work towards it!
Might work well and could be expanded upon later.