So when does the game get fun?

I sunk about 20 hours into Tarkov over the last few weeks. I've long been a fan of more realistic shooters like Arma, HLL, Red Orchestra etc and thought it looked pretty cool.

The gunplay is fantastic but I never get to actually shoot anyone or anything because I consistently either have runs where nothing happens at all or I get insta-killed by some guy I probably haven't even laid eyes half a kilo away. Which wouldn't be a huge deal if it didn't mean that I then lost all my fun gear and have to sit through several minutes of loading screens and walking aimlessly in the maps before having the same thing happen again. Which becomes doubly annoying as, so far as I can tell: the entire crux of the game seems to be trying to get weapons and gear that are better so you're less shit. Seems like such a shame that such good weapons handling and customization are tucked away in what feels like a purposefully unfun and frustrating gameplay loop. Not to mention the variety of design decisions that feel purposefully obtuse just for the sake of making it more frustrating (IE: no in-game map; figure out where the extraction points are on your own)

Like is this genuinely all there is to the game or is there something I'm missing? Or is it literally just an endless feedback loop of grinding to get better gear so you… don't have to grind as much?