Isn't it tough to try and get higher ELO and get seen by players that you acctually know how to play the game when indeed you get trolls every game, or every other game?

Well this is the case for me. 9/10 of my last 10 games i've had a leaver/troll/someone pretending to be a riot member.

Riot needs to find an better way for people to progress through ranked.

A better way than... playing league of legends? Any suggestions?

Yeah, a better way than just keep on playing after lots of frustrated matches. A behavior that is not positively reinforced is obviously extinguished. it's just a matter of time/attempts. You can't just expect that people will keep on trying if there is no reinforcement - unless you progressively and gradually lower the reinforcement rate. But I doubt that the matchmaking system currently takes reinforcement schedules into consideration.

So, I agree with the OP, it's very frustrating to be matched with trolls over and over. Riot should do something about this.

I understand what you're saying here, but I don't understand how it can be addressed without fundamentally changing the game of league of legends (i.e. rewarding with ranked progression for individual performance, which undermines the teamwork-based game). Any suggestions?

Actually I do. As I posted a few days ago, I think Leaver Buster should be more severe. An AFK or a leaver seriously ruin the whole match. A person who is constantly leaving or getting AFK, for whatever reason, is someone who's frustrating other 4 people at least. If we could have a fair 5x5 game in every match, that would be a good start.

Another suggestion that I just posted is that queue dodge should not be punished. If there is a clear troll or a toxic player in champion selection, being able to avoid playing with that person would prevent lots os stress. If Riot sets a queue dodge punishment to force people to play a whole match with a troll, a hater or an AFK (whose champion is randomly selected), you are just creating a potentially toxic environment.

And one last suggestion is a change in the ELO rating. There should be some distinction between the players on a team. Sometimes 1 player costs the whole match (leaver, AFK, feeder) and it's unfair to equaly lower everybody's ELO because of him.