again though, the fallacy that's repeated over and over again with IPv6 is that just because you have a public IP, suddenly everything is exploitable.

If you have an IPv4-only network, you still have firewall and routing. This is what protects your router, allows ports to be forwarded, etc.

Literally nothing changes. You still need routing, just not the NAT/PAT part of it. You still need a firewall.