Activity without a doubt does not affect the quality of finds, so no idea what your point is with that.
But it sounds like you're saying is someone who returns to full activity has more chance of finding something than someone who doesn't play for a single day for over a year? You sir are a genius.
I could easily show you my Log of my finds after a long inactivity spout but I figure it will not matter to you. There's already been discussion here in the forums about inactive people coming back to finding SEs and other very valuable items much more often than people who log on daily. The daily players may find items more often, I cannot say, but as for the value it is significantly better on average when you come back from an inactive stint.
What I am saying is someone who is inactive and comes back will more likely find better and higher value items for awhile than someone who is on everyday. The person who is on everyday might find more items, it is all RNG, but most people who come back from being inactive for a while will come back to quiet a few valuable items in the city.
I'm not sure where you are getting this 'without a doubt...' assertion as City Finds have almost no real information other than Max Merits mean nothing really in the grand scheme of things. Is there some chart or information on city finds that I missed somewhere?
You semi started 2011-2021. The system has changed since 2017. You were not really inactive as you logged in once in a while. This probably explained your city find
Maybe you are misinterpreting my meaning of 'inactive'. Yes I logged on just to do my educations and Banking, sell my DVDs and play some poker. Then be away for Torn for 3 months. Thats extend of my activity for most of those years. I was highly active way back longer than the Logs go, you see I 'joined' a really long time ago. I do not mean inactive as 'never logging in'. I mean it as 'doing the bare minimum' vs people who are on torn 24/7.
To elaborate, I didnt come back and suddenly find tons of items after being inactive. What I experienced was playing for about 2 months without even looking at the map and when I did I had 50+ items, including one SE. I have no way of knowing if those items spawned during my inactivity or spawned due to my sudden activity.
I am simply stating from everything I have read from other experiences and my own, coming from being inactive tends to make your City Finds a bit better in the short term.
Confirmation bias is always a thing, sure, and without data public got everyone to see, your own experience is really all you have to go on anyway but it would not be beyond anything we have seen for inactives to get a slight boost vs active players for a goal of player retention.