I don't want to be accused ( yet again
) of making excuses for them but ref your point 3, it does say in their recruitment blurb on their website that they are lookijng for experienced Capt's & Cadets with no airline experience, there are currently no offers for experienced F/O's.
Coincidentally the self same situation is more or less in existence at EasyJet.
As you correctly identified pilot recruitment, where possible, is also used to swell the coffers. If you don't understand or weren't expecting that, you wasted your 50 quid applying to Ryanair and should have done your homework by reading all the information previously written on here.