MMR for Normals

I'm trying not to make this a rant so please don't think of it as such. However, I'm so tired of going to play normals with my friends and getting beat down by at least 2 or 3 golds, sometimes a plat or someone who was there last season but hasn't played ranked. We normally 4 man so our pug is around silver 1 or 2. None of my group are ranked any higher that bronze 1 and never higher than silver 4 any season. So why is that we seem to be predominately grouped with people who have proven themselves at a higher level?

I get there may be some penalty since we are a 4 man but c'mon. Thats a bit harsh to say the least. I know each queue is ranked separately but there has to be a better way to group people together when even I can check and see what rank they are. And the saddest part? Its a relative cake walk when I play by myself or 2 man from that same group. I've seen that same dynamic work against other groups as well. This poor ADC who just hit 30 partnered with a friend who was gold 2. So he got fed to people way higher skill level then him in arguably the hardest role in the entire game. He was on my team once and then on the opposing team the next game. I felt horrible for him because I could honestly relate.

Now, I'm really trying to stay away from confirmation bias but I don't know what else to think at this point. I'm not looking for an easy game. I'm not looking for hand holding. But for the love of all that is holy can we get some relatively comparable teams to fight? As it is now it feels like Riot is punishing me (and by proxy my team) by daring to play with 4 people. You want to talk about making the game fun for everyone Riot? This would be a good place to start. Because I'm willing to admit I'm not very good and I'm trying to get better. However, getting fed to people two tiers higher than me doesn't help nor is it fun at all.

If I am just wasting my time then that will be that and I can at least accept it. It just means that I'm going to stop trying because I'm tired of feeling like I can't do anything on this game with my friends.