The hit rate is never determined by falloff, that only affects how much damage you do.

Hit chance is determined by the hit dispersion of your weapon (its spray size) vs the hit size of your target.  If the bot is larger than your dispersion you will hit 100%.

Missiles have a constant chance to miss regardless of bot size, but will do less damage if their size is smaller than the missiles explosion size.

LOS is a bit wonky currently, so shooting down hill can cause it to miss and hit the ground.

The point isn't "Do missions, get rep, do better missions". Right now, if anything, the goal for most people is "Do whatever it takes to amass better tech/secure corp island/dominate world" You're amassing resources. With a sandbox title, it's all how you look at it. If you want something more guided, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you're not really going to find it in a sandbox title.

Also, cut the guys some slack. Considering a team of, what, ten guys made this, and the game has been released for a grand total of four or so days, of course it needs work. That being said, it's *** phenomenal compared to some of the releases I've seen with larger groups/more funding. Give them the time and the resources, and things will improve.