These more active BHs in lower tiers are calculating. They stay as dormant as possible (no prizes, treasure islands, finished upgrades, etc) for one Brawl, then they go all out on the next one, and so forth.
IMO, you're not losing much by not winning. The BH rewards (so, ignoring Gigs, which are personal) you get are split in 3 categories: ranking, victory, stages (points achieved). Of these, the ones for victory are the least interesting (some Daggers, boosts, and a not-very-useful item... totally uninteresting, IMO). Ranking rewards, which you get if you're among top 10, are the best ones ruby-wise, but you don't get anything else. They range (IIRC) from a few hundred to a few thousand rubies per member for higher tiers (no idea about lower ones). The stages rewards are a mix of goodies (ships, res, some rubies,...) and likely the most worth of the bunch. Just compare below: 7.5k rubies vs. a few boosts and Daggs vs. over 1k rubies and some quite useful items.
Here, see the composite that I made when my BH made #1 in Diamond tier:
Now, ranking - of course - kinda depends on which tier you end up in and for that you might want to consider a more calculating approach (what I described in the first paragraph). However, if other BHs are doing that as well, then the others who do it will still push you out of top 10, even in a lower tier. There is no helping that.
Other than trying to manipulate your tier in an effort to get in top 10 (which would reduce stages rewards), just go for the points and it totally doesn't matter if you win or lose. The victory reward is really all but useless.