Ok so the best way to get geared up quickly after spawning seems to be just run to an office building or supermarket etc (I went to elektro, lots of loot spawns near each other in the centre.) and just hop between servers until you find at least a knife, matches and a compass. Then you can disappear into the woods forever without ever having to reveal yourself to another survivor.
I'd actually like single server persistence, so you only keep your character on this server along with a raise in the number of players per server. This would eliminate server hopping for gear and force people to actually sneak around looking for stuff.
