VACnet hurts cheaters, and also probably 25% of legits as well. In low trust this can be verified pretty quickly. Even in the gutter of trust, redder than red, you still have about 50-60% of players cheating. That's nearly half of everyone in the WORST trust factor of the game, who are there while not cheating. Though some are probably griefers/mic-spammers/toxics, it's certainly not all of them.
If there's one thing that all cheaters have in common, it's an inflated ego. If the enemy is cheating, and half your teammates are, and it's casual, you're gonna toggle on harder. There is no way to get banned in casual, unless it's by VAC, in which case you already have it injected so it doesn't matter.
You are right, though; my estimate is just personal experience
