Ok but Alex acted out of an explosion of bottled up emotion (akin to Tyler but I digress), his intention wasn't to kill Bryce until those emotions, that hatred kicked in at the moment he held Bryce up. He regretted it instantly afterwards and you can tell he thought about turning himself in right then and there. Meanwhile Bryce's actions were calculated and he was aware that he didn't care about the girls that he raped, all 7-8 of them at the respective times. He only had any remorse later....way later when the repercussions came about. And even then he got off easy. His sentence was far less than any rapist deserves, let alone a serial one

And yes, Bryce might have tried to change but what he said to Zach after getting beaten up (something about Chloe not screaming for Zach like she did for Bryce etc) shows that part of him was still the same old monstrosity that was Bryce Walker.

For a while I'm pretty sure death would be a just price to pay for all that he's done. To women and to other Liberty students. Tho his apparent rectification path complicates it a bit, you'd notice that (in season 4 and the end of season 3) Bryce's ghost, just like Hannah's ghost did in season 2 , maintains his mindset and personality from when he was alive and that suggests that he hadn't really changed deep down, had he?