I've dabbled a bit in OSRS gold way back when and that I believe made a watch sooner or later on OSRS. Is RuneScape still worth becoming? As an on casual and off player I would say it is in a state that is very good. It's certainly not for everyone. But If you want true sandbox experience with a massive world and much more things to do than you will ever have enough time for then I'd check it out. I'd start off with F2P until you complete the quest dragon slayer should you enjoyed it move on to members.
My problem with RuneScape game is the absence of support from jagex and that. Possibly the MMO dev I know that will say no to giving your account back if it was hacked and prohibited. The only time I've ever heard of these giving the accounts together with the gold back is when a jmod was purposely leaking people's info to hackers.If you're lucky you can get your account back but never gold.
I wonder what's going through the management's heads in jagex occasionally. I doubt it's a choice from the jmods tbh. The reason Cheap Rs gold game works is them stuff unless the neighborhood votes it.
I do not mind that. I remember submitting an appeal for a 13-year-old account I haven't utilized for 11 out of those 13 years. Signed in only to learn it had been banned for using macros. Stated I didn't even care whether the character was deleted I simply wanted my accounts back so that I could play together with my"primary" account. They said no, so I ended up starting over anyhow and creating a new account.