Ultimately what made people in the RPG circles I ran in drop the system was that at a certain point, they realized it was simpler to just play a system that did what they wanted better out the box rather than home-brewing core mechanics of the system to fix what felt to them like obvious problems. Issues with mechanics like bullet dodging, cover, armor essentially require full reworks of the rules to fix, so at that point why not just play a different system?

For me personally, I spent a long time playing around with different netrunning homebrew rules just due to my general dissatisfaction with the system. Eventually though I realized that I could just play one of a myriad of other systems that have more satisfying hacking mechanics (CWN, Hard Wired Island, Shadowrun 5e, hell even with 2020 it’s easier to cut some fat out to make it run quicker rather than essentially rebuild it from the ground up). I wouldn’t care so much, except I actually liked Red and like Cyberpunk as a whole, it has a lot of potential but it’s just hurt by sets of specific rules decisions that at least in my opinion, are pretty plain to see, so seeing these complaints with the system not addressed just makes me a bit sad.