For many years, I used to be one of those people you described in your TL;DR. But I eventually felt the same way you did. I then created an ironmeme account on RS3, but even there I really felt like nothing was 'achievement-worthy' so to speak, and all because whales enabling SoF/TH ruined MY experience. I got downvoted a lot on this sub in the past for saying such a controversial thing (how dare I...), but it's like you say; nobody gets new engaging content - irons included - because of them.

I truly cannot stress this enough; give OSRS a chance. It's almost mind-blowing that this game is ran by the same company who's behind RS3. The difference is day and night. I'm glad I made the switch and I never looked back once. It's just a shame that it took me 8 whole years after SoF's release (I quit in 2020) to understand that RS3 has no future, and that yes, things will only get worse. This new promotion is example number #63940587. And hell, it's not even going to end there. Who knows what crap you guys will be dealing with 2-3 years from now.