What you've described is exactly what patriarchy is from a sociological perspective - a pyramid shaped dominance-based hierarchy where only a small elite number of men wield the most power.
It's an entire social system that goes way beyond a historical power imbalance between men and women — and it’s only a few thousand years old, so it doesn’t explain anyone’s behavior except in that social context.
However, imagining that most women are only interested in the "upper" 10% of men is evolutionarily unsound and preposterous from a "go to the mall and look at who is paired up" perspective as well. In case you haven't noticed, this isn't 1950 anymore. Most women don't care how much money a man makes beyond the fact that he is economically stable and not likely to sponge off of her - because Newsflash - women make their own money now. They don't need a "provider." And this is borne out across the world - the more gender equity exists in a country, the less likely women are to marry men who are older than they are for economic security.
A relentless focus on “mating value,” narrowly conceived, also contrasts with an analysis of several data sets reporting what characteristics men and women find more and less important in a partner. These show that for the past seventy-five years, across a number of different countries, the most important attributes in a long-term partner for both women and men have nothing to do with youthful fertility traded for resources.
Fine, Cordelia. Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society (p. 75). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
“Good looks are less important to women — men who score between 5–9 on ‘attractiveness’ actually receive more messages than men who score 10/10,” finds an Oxford University analysis of 150,000 dating profiles. “Both sexes have become less concerned with the income or education level of a potential partner.”
