I have grumbled and ranted all throughout the time I've played Quake Live duel over the course of 3-4 years. I've made some great progress though, winning some tough games between 1800-2000+ elo players. The only thing that has worried and annoyed me the most with my inconsistencies in Quake Live is my inability to punish bad positioning from opponents when they rush me down. If you watch guys like Rapha punish bad positioning, or sometimes in Fraze's Quake Live duel tutorials, the opponent gets over zealous for getting frags, and with those two high level Quake players I see the bad pushes get instantly punished with good rockets and lg. I just watched a video of Rapha playing against Anarki in QC and he complained that because of the speed and hitbox of these champions, people can do absolutely dumb shit all the time and get away with it and they get the frag because they gain an advantage after they push through.

I heard all of the time how people don't have to have good aim, just play positionally. Well, I actually have this problem with Quake Live and that is why I avoided Quake Champions entirely (as I can't stop people from doing that in VQL). I feel like punishing players for dumb attacks would be the most important part of why Quake Live is played positionally, but it hasn't helped my game all that much.
The respect from the opponent isn't there, my aim isn't there and my body ain't ready. You would think that because Quake is heavily based on positioning and working the positions well, that players rushing through choke points and bad spots would know better but it just surprises me that I don't punish their actions. Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

Am I even looking at this the correct way?!