Even with four lows it’s an inferior armour brawler, and it’s not exactly a stellar scramkiter either. Using the fact that it’s the fastest combat frigate and brawling fragile ships that expect you to be AB fit seems like a plausible strategy.
It was good before the change, now it is a garbage. Utility high was what made rifter special. Without it its just another boring all out dps frig, which the game has too many already.
When someone pays your killright and you manage to escape and now you need to die to get rid of that killright, jump into empty rifter and warp back to players (or tell a friend or use alt to kill yourself)
The Rifter was the most beloved frigate for many years back when. I would hope that the developers would re-engineer it to become something totally different so that it could regain a newfound place in the heart of the Alpha Clone.