In a former life I did a lot of research into these rankings and at one time was really familiar with methodology, etc. The rankings aren't as static as some think. When they were first published in the early 80s, Penn, an Ivy, wasn't in the top 25. Wash U made a major jump around twenty years ago. I think even Duke wasn't always consistently top five or so like it has been lately. Also, lot of chatter on here about "top 30" but Wake peaked at #22 sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s. Nothing to sniff at.
The drop for Wake definitely sucks from a bragging rights standpoint. While the sky isn't falling like some of the usual provocateurs suggest, this will create headaches for Wake's PR folks and will materially impact things like number of applications, etc. I'm sure we'll see some subtle or not so subtle efforts over the next few years from MSD to try to regain ground. As others note, these rankings really don't measure academic quality but something else entirely. The idea that schools like Va Tech, OSU, Maryland, TAMU, and others are qualitatively better than Wake from an academic standpoint is laughable.
Would really suck to be a Brandeis alum. Brandeis at #60 is insulting. If anything Brandeis has more cache in academic circles than Wake does. Tulane got shafted too, although I thought Tulane was a little overrated to begin with.