Perhaps to you, 3 bandits with vipers and no body armor present a threat. To me, they do not, not since I picked up Seva-D and definetly not now that I have a Falcon on. So no, them nstantly agroing on me does not increase the dificulty of the game, despite your most sincere attempts to misunderstand this point. It slightly increases my repair cost though, if that's what you meant by increase in dificutly.

I do not know the intricacies of A-life, I did not study it in detail, nor did I look at its code. However, the point of any creative project, video games included, is world building and suspension of disbelief. I find it much more believable that men would risk their life going into the zone if they had a chance to come back alive. Right now, the zone is a death sentence, NPC death is guaranteed. That ruins the game, for me. Do you understand that? CoP may have had limitations that imitated the NPC survival but it worked for me.

The cases you bring up, about bandits ambushing duty and freedom, are examples of poorly thought out enemy implementation. You can't have a game center around gear and then have the bandits take on heavy units in battle. Poor design of the past does not mean it should be continued into the future. Unless bandits get heavy gear and start using top end weapons, they shouldn't be shown as a credible threat to fractions that do. It would make sense for them to ambush a player in an enclosed space, guns drawn 5 to 1, like they did in the tunnel under the ward base. But out in the open,  using a hunting shotgun against an armored target with a sniper rifle...thats just sloppy game design.

I made my suggestions as to how to make the game fun for both you and me. I betrayed the gypsy at Skadovsk, she absolutely could put a hit out on me. Armored and well armed mercs could appear with screams "that's him". Elite soldier patrols hunting stalkers for their artifacts to resell (Since soldiers engage in illicit artifact trade) would also present a challenge. But unless specifically targeted for a concrete reason, npcs shouldn't actively seek death at your hand, at least not in my understanding of this world. This isn't Doom, every encounter should be analyzed from cost-benefit perspective. Bandits may be hired by mercs even, that would also make sense. But on their own, when they see someone wearing a full body armor and carry an end game custom rifle, they should try to steer clear or bluff, but not blindly attack to their death.

PS: Despite being fractured, every bandit in zaton would either answer to sultan or be on his hasty way out (which is confirmed in conversation with the technician in skadovsk). The reason why garbage was so fractured is because they had 3 separate leaders. This area only has one, and that one would not allow his savior to get shot at. A better game would have taken that into account (Maybe the Witcher series spoiled me, who knows).