I have to say that I never heard any of those rumors before trying the game; I arrived to that conclusion myself after playing for a couple of months. I had terrible luck with the party finder, and most - not all, in all fairness - of the RP I found in the world was very ERP-oriented.
That said, I have to agree with you in the fact that I didn't really look that hard, and I usually wait for someone else to break the ice. I am decided to give it another try, maybe join a discord server and explore this site more (I'm happy to see that I was wrong, since there seems to be plenty of serious RPers out there!). All that is left for me to say is thanks for your post! It truly made me reconsider my initial judgement.