As I recall, you struggled in RDO in the beginning. .....a lot. More than many around here if I'm going to be honest. Almost giving up the game a couple times in fact. A lot of us tried providing advice and over time, you started coming around. IIRC, that was due in part to following some of the suggestions folks provided and eventually, the changes that R* made to the game and the fact that you stuck with it. You got over your hurdles and have done a complete 180 which is great.
However, what I never agreed with was the take on some of the griefing issues, etc. being so much worse in those days as I felt a lot was simply due to the way people were exposing themselves to trolls. The fact is, some of the problems were not that difficult to mitigate which is what some of us were trying to drive home for those having issues. .....joining a posse, spawning in several states from your destination, using the app to spot other players, etc.
There's no doubt the new tools, revisions of existing ones, penalties and such have greatly helped, but there were always effective ways to help people avoid the griefing problem and some of them still work really well today. ....and it really has little to do with being kitted out or leveled up IMO.