"Starter" weapon means nothing.
A starter mythic is a Nyzul drop anyway.
The only way to compare RMEs is at their only relevant level, which is currently 119 for anything but instruments and shields.
And yes people try to do the NMs, a bit, see the part where the drop rate is ATROCIOUS.
At least if you wake up in the morning and say "today I will work on my Mythic" you can then go and do SOMETHING to work on it. Farm some Alex, do an Assault, run Ein, etc.
I can wake up tomorrow, run as many Bismarks as I can convince people to blow voidstones on, and Not. Get. A. Single. Riftcinder.
And you know, have the one person who managed to get one offer it to me for 3 to 5 mil.
Lemme tell you, that kind of lack of progress really kills your will get going. The Mythic requirements? I did some every week with other people including a person who won a Cat's Eye. Sure it wasn't fast, but hey! It got done. And if someone as generally unmotivated as me could show up every week to run Assaults and then Nyzul and get Salvage clears etc, I'm sure you can do it too.