a) As I mentioned before, you can make your own RB parties. It might take a bit longer if you don't play in EU primetime, but it's perfectly doable - btw. low level RBs don't go into zerk mode so you can easily do them with just one party.
b) You get ton of free stuff - free shots, free guns, (basically) free D armor (via the Moon Knight quest), you get plenty of buffs from the achievements, you can even buy pretty cheap buffs for fishes. We had none of that stuff on patch 1.0 and yet many people solo-ed their way up (me included, since I used to play outside of EU prime time I often had to level up solo with my EE). Even now, there's ton of people who start without the boxed buffer because in many cases it's just not worth it - you level up so fast with the RB parties that you don't even get to do much farm on your own before 70, after which you're supposed to find a clan/CP anyway. The point is - if the idea of having to farm a bit in between the RB parties without boxed buff scares you, then maybe Classic isn't for you It's your choice anyway, just wanted to point out that having no box is not as big deal as you think.