"In RB 2017 I was hoping that all issues had been resolved and that I would not not have to use another DAW."
Me too, I have been waiting years for that to happen but I'm not sure it will, though I still hope.
If you have Reaper you might be better to use the ReWireVST
and use RealBand just to generate the tracks, sections or multiriffs you need, this way Reaper will take all the load and won't crash.

ReWire RealBand/PT

ReWire should be implemented soon in BB/RB hopefully.