Yes i do set up port forwarding every time, but no i don't know if those even have peers. They should because i don't think RARBG is that dead, but maybe they just don't.
Then again most peers i do get come back as "Timed out connecting" and "Connection reset", so it does make me wonder if i'm just doing it wrong. It seems to happen whether or not the VPN is on.
EDIT: i'm using Proton and this is how i set up port forwarding, i do notice a difference
No i haven't tried that yet, my assumption is that this only includes the settings and not the actual transfers. If it did include the transfers then Tixati users would just do that, instead i was always told to transplant core2.dat