The armor is linked, therefore all armors of lvl 50 come with the same stats. There are 3 classes to armour: range, mage melee and RS gold melee. Tier50 armor; batwing, rune and blue Dhide. All of them have the identical stats. They are just different classes. Someone who is able to range a man in rune will have the exact dps stats as someone meleeing a mage. Numerous things got nerfed/buffed. Deadly red spiders generated over 200k xp/h for p2p at 90+cmb stats.
It's been improved. Pking isn't a simple 'click atk-food-repe till u die' anymore. It requires timing, precision and reflexes as OSRS buy gold in addition to skill timing, precision and prediction. A man in bronze who is skilled in timing precise, reflexes, and prediction could be able to beat a man in rune who is clueless.