I wonder how much of this is to do with magic levels and monsters maybe. It really is not something we ever raised as a problem and it is rarely raised on Runequest forums that I ever see.
Our experience was mostly DoD 87 and Expert (Danish version) but a lot of attack forms can't be parried to begin with (spells, arrows), bad guys often outnumber the heroes anyways (meaning you cant parry everything coming in) and there is no dodge roll.
Armour is a bigger issue but in my experience if you played the published adventures you pretty quickly find some serious firepower so ending up with a sword with BLIXT E2 or something isn't that far fetched.
Of course a lot of the monsters get gnarly. We fought a dragon exactly once in DoD. The first attack was a tail swipe which killed the "kriger" instantly from full HP to negative FYS. We legged it after that.
When we moved to Runequest (3e) the stakes went up a lot more. Running into a Zorak Zoran worshipping troll hitting for something like 1D10+1D6 base damage (and he probably has spells to add to that) and if you get tagged, he has Sever Spirit and will kill you instantly if he beats you in a POW vs POW contest. We appreciated our defences quite a lot!
You CAN juice your defences quite a lot in Runequest with armouring tattooes but Glorantha always has something bigger to throw at you.
I think sometimes these discussions are from the wrong perspective though. BRP always treats players and monsters the same so "how many swings of the sword should it take for one orc to kill your character?" is a better question to start with.
edit: And Im not saying anyone is wrong in what they think. Just interested in how experiences of the same game can often be so different so I wanted to explain