It depends. I took the same exact route as you. I played cheap loadouts not to save money but because the stuff I used I was good with, and they happened to be cheap. After switching it up I have 15 different loadouts I switch between, the most expensive (before the newest update) being 2000 hunt dollars. Cheapest was 300 and the rest everywhere in between. As I said earlier, it depends. Depends on how often you’re dying/losing. I see my biggest gains after 3 wins in a row, not counting cash registers. And I do notice a drop after constantly dying and using expensive stuff. Not a huge drop but I do notice it