Consider also that with the number of adventures and amount of experience some of these characters have achieved, they may just deserve it...
Alright, so right away the first question is what characters does this effect?
Well, basically any character that has been part of a successful Story at any point all the way up through Ruleset version 1.0.9 (August 2015). Under the revised system their Rank and Reputation are both lower than they ought to be... even more so for characters with prodigious experience.
Before delving into the Character Sheets it would probably be good to verify that your Victory phase booklet is indeed the most current version. The old Rank structure looks like this...
The formula, Rank - (Hero Awards * 2) = x
The example, 27 - (5 * 2) = 27 - 10 = 17
Step 2: Multiply the result above times two
The formula, x * 2 = The First Number
The example, 17 * 2 = 34
Step 3: Multiply Hero Awards times three for The Second Number
The formula, Hero Awards * 3 = The Second Number
The example, 5 * 3 = 15
Step 4: Add the First and Second numbers
The formula, First number + Second number = The Third number
The example, 34 + 15 = 49
Step 5: Subtract somewhere between one and five from The Third Number
We want to encourage all players to be a little forgiving here as there very likely is no precise (flawless) way to convert older Characters, yet the collective sentiment we may agree is that they're deserving of it none-the-less. All those adventures and bread baking and heroic deeds! Alright, so...
The formula, Third Number minus 1~5 = Adjusted Rank
The example, we guess three instances so 49 - 3 = Adjusted Rank of 46
And there it is. The adjusted, or more 'correct' Rank for this character is now 46 from 27. The previous Reputation was "Veteran" whereas the very probably more 'correct' Reputation is now "Agent of Feonora."