0.0 is much different, and the FCing is much different. Even out of FW I have found that I-RED is getting alot more kills/good fights in lowsec then almost any nullsec area we have been.. the main problem is income.
I think it has a lot to do with where you live. When you were in Syndicate/CR/OR/Fountain/whereever the hell you were, you were in an area where there are two types of groups. Type 1: USTZ small-gang entities that consider ~goodfights roughly even engagements where neither side goes in with a significant advantage of ewar, logistics, or tonnage (or one side does so willingly). Type 2: Napfest groups that are blue to 3/4 of the north and the only non-blob gangs they field are pitchfork gangs that generally refuse to engage unless they have a 2-1 superiority and/or are planning to drop capitals on the field just to seal the overwhelming advantage. In other words, if you're EU based, you weren't getting a lot of ~goodfights because of where you were. And to be fair, my experience in the EU timezone is that there are very few places where you don't get blobbed back into the stone age, which is unfortunately what happens when half of EVE are blue to each other.
Mining is tedious and has an extremely low income per hour. All your time would be eaten up with mining ops and you’d have none left to do whatever it is you needed isk to do in the first place. You would be better off missioning at a 100% tax rate and then buying the minerals. You'd have way more minerals on hand for the same amount of time spent and you wouldn't have to have everyone spend a month and a half training hulks, then spend 200M on each hulk.
You also left out a key part--anyone interested in not just blobbing something once in a while, but legitimately after good fights and exciting battles won't really stand for logging in to mandatory mining ops (or even optional mining ops when they soak up the majority of the pilots that might otherwise form a gang to go pick fights with), and eventually will either burn out and stop playing or leave for greener pastures--which are generally easy to find if you're looking for PvP-focused entities that abhor mining or even hearing the word mentioned.