> My OS floated around 10-15 and I virtually always ended up having to go front in every lobby, which is the position I hate the most because I don’t like playing my strategy game like an RPG
So the truth is, "Front" is the absolute standard. There are only two other "types" of positions which are tech and air. And a good tech player usually also plays that role more like a front player just with more time in the early game to scale his economy. (with the exception of a few maps like supreme and glitters)
What I'm saying, if you don't like playing front then you should not play the regular 8v8 PvP lobbies on most maps since playing front is the optimal play.
> What also enraged me is that the back players would have the nerve to make the front player “pay” for their T2 constructor units after working so hard to keep everyone alive
Again this is the somewhat optimal play. It is much more efficient to only pay for 1 T2 lab instead of 8. This being said, if you don't "pay" the player giving out t2 you MASSIVELY slow down the production of T2 constructors since the player can't get the economy to comfortably produce 8 of them by 6-7 minutes. Thus not paying leads to the whole team massively losing tempo and upgrading their mexes etc. more slowly which will lose you the game.
> the front player has zero resources at any given time because it’s all going into units that are being meat grinded.
You should be able to save up 400 metal during the 5-6 minutes of early game by building some defenses and playing more passively around that time. You will notice your opponent will too. All-In'ing in T1 is a very risky strategy and 400 metal are usually not the deciding factor if it succeeds or fails. Ofc there are cases were you ARE poor, in those the tech player should understand it and not require payment, but this is usually only the case if you got raided early on for example.
On last thing:
> and never really get to strategise.
Soooo there is a lot of strategy but it's essentially locked behind very high skilllevels. As a 10-15 OS player keeping your units alive and managing your eco is hard enough and what you should be focusing on. Only once that becomes second nature you will notice the more strategic part of BAR.
Source: 37 os with 58% wr playing only in the highest OS rotato lobby.