After leaving to watch the local fireworks I realized I was just overthinking things and shoulda just stopped after I was told it was based exactly on XP and not just rounded off by levels like I was first understanding.
My bad, I tend to do it at times and just can't help it but I will give credit to this thread, it did provide me with clarity
Nothing was really lost or gained in terms of time or XP/levels spent grinding so there really isn't anything to really be mad about. Most of the players (if not all) had been wanting this fix for a long time and it finally happened. For compensation to those that had already passed the level limit, any "purchased" levels will be applied at the end of the account to give them their highest value possible.
For the people complaining about how some had more or less levels drained than others: it's simply because they have more bought levels added to their account and happened to be past level 3377 yet had NOT spent a total of (XP required for lvl 3377) amount of time grinding, but still benefited from the "levels applied after XP accounted for" perk that EVERYONE above lvl 3377 earned.
They had the same exact treatment you did but due to a technicality of fairness, didn't have as many (if any) levels removed after the
XP Cap Fix from their account.
EDIT: Not to mention it was impossible to tell when exactly any purchased levels were applied, so instead of making them worth the least (applying at the beginning) it was decided they would all be applied at the end.
Either way these players would still be ahead of you, it's not the developer's fault players decided to abuse a broken XP system to obtain massively high levels.
A fix was finally made and everything was adjusted accordingly. Most are still well above the average player regardless because of how much time invested, which is ofc how it should be.
The average game nowadays will run an average person a anywhere between $20-E200 if they purchase all of the DLC etc at most. Even for most other app purchase games, an "average" spender wouldn't spend more than this either per game.
These players have invested thousands if not 10k+ into this one single game. That's like investing in potentially hundreds of games, which you could spend YEARS playing (as the players most affected have) and still not be able to be the best in every one of them. Your level correctly reflects the time spent, and theirs reflects the money spent.
That's pretty much my "clarity" on the whole situation.