Actually, even the skipper had just one stripe in "The Cage"; the two-stripe version was introduced in the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". (Also, the second pilot didn't feature any characters with the "holy" stripe.)
In the second pilot, we could argue that the ranks were not "loose" at all: quite possibly everybody with a single braid did hold the rank of Lieutenant, and Kirk was the only one with the rank of Captain (or possibly Commander, which would make the pilot scheme identical with the regular TOS scheme with minimal fuss). The rank of Lieutenant Commander is mentioned in the episode, too, but only in Kirk's log entry; it need not correlate with any of the rank braids seen on the characters.
Theoretically, we could do the same with the first pilot, and claim that it, too, obeyed the TOS system. The "holy chief" there might hold the rank of Lieutenant (jg), which is denoted by a "broken" braid in TOS. Or then he might be wearing a special NCO or Warrant Officer braid that falls into disfavor in TOS, or is only worn by people who stay off camera in TOS, or something.
Admittedly, though, it would be a bit odd for Captain Pike to hold the relatively low rank of Lieutenant.
But he does command a crew less than half that of Kirk!
Timo Saloniemi
