You are correct unfortunately, it seems that it is a time based mechanic that gives you pitiful rewards even for completing a full match or two.
I am level 104 now and did not get any loot from the 1k hours I put into multiplayer before launch of the skins system. I find this highly unfortunate as back then I played more skirmish. I would love to play NA skirmish more, but there is never anyone on. High ping on this game feels horrible and makes EU unplayable even on the east coast. In Warband playing with high ping was easier. I have fun playing some aspects of bannerlord, but it seems acquiring all the skins will be an impossible goal even with the amount of time I put into the game already.
Give up all hope ye all who try to make sense of Taleworlds' perverted game design logic. In fact, I would argue that making numerous iterations in design and getting all 100 percent of them wrong must take a very special talent rather than mere incompetence or blind chance.
This loot system was clearly intended to incentivize more people to play their precious competitive modes. However, in the sad reality where 90 percent of skirmish matches result in one team getting obliterated by the other, the only thing that it managed to achieve is incentivize a handful of sweaty tryhards to sweat even harder and stomp the opposing team as fast as possible to farm loot and badges. Since no sane person would ever find this kind of gameplay remotely fun, this has led to skirmish being even more dead than before, which, again, is an amazing feat in itself.
I say, vote with your legs and invest your time in better things than this dog turd of a game.
