However, most people do not use total lifetime masterpoints to measure ability. I can try to impress people with my lifetime total, but other players know that lifetime total isn't completely reliable. They will tend to judge me on other factors.
So, it is very important to realize that masterpoints function primarily as awards, not as a measure of ability. Most importantly, they must be managed as awards, not as measures of ability.
Masterpoints would be a better measure of ability if awards were more proportional to merit. But that would be a very small improvement. Masterpoint awards should be proportional to merit for other reasons.
The ACBL uses lifetime masterpoints for stratification and seeding. I do not see any problem with that, except for very good young players who want to play in the bracket of a knockout appropriate to their ability. (See essay on A Small Problem Using Masterpoints to Measure Ability.)
Should the ACBL adopt a more accurate measure of ability? If it collects data from tournaments, it could adopt a chess-like rating. That could be used for bracketing and seeding, and it would be another interesting activity for bridge players -- trying to improve one's rating. But there are problems with chess-like measures (see essay).