what happened to veronica?

So I’m watching Veronica Mars, right? I’m on about the third disc of the first season. I have some questions.
1. Where did the indy-kid Veronica go?
2. Where did the hardcore class commentary go?
3. What is the deal with her assault? This is the bit that worries me the most. In the first episode, some time is spent on the fact that she was assaulted at a party after her drink was spiked with some sort of drug. She makes it clear that she was raped, though I can’t remember the exact language. We don’t know who he was – it could have been any of the male characters at the party, including her ex-boyfriend, her boyfriends’s friends or her best friend’s boyfriend. This is an interesting narrative angle. Veronica is a clever, assertive, articulate, witty and sarcastic badass (though she’s mellowing as the season continues).
The implication is that she turned her back on vapid barbiedom after her best friend was killed, she was assaulted and the rest of the barbies demoted her from supercool to indy kid. Before the best friend (who was her boyfriend’s sister) was killed, Veronica was a renowned ‘virgin’. Her reputation is currently ‘bad’ – she is scored 14/100 for purity by her schoolmates.
She’s currently single and much is made of her celibacy. There are more and more comments about her being a virgin. Nothing has been said about her assault in quite a few episodes. Veronica didn’t tell anyone she was assaulted except the nasty sheriff, and he told her she was full of shit. I’m not sure if the current sheriff/deputy (I’m not sure who he is) – who replaced Veronica’s dad – is meant to be the same character who gave Veronica such a hard time. He’s mellowed quite a bit.
Here’s the general scene: the nasty characters have been mellowed. The badass, subversive characters have been mellowed. Veronica’s assault has disappeared.
What I want to know is: is all this talk about Veronica being a virgin a fairly progressive suggestion that her assault wasn’t sex, but was violence or an attack? I’m not sure this TV show is actually that progressive. I’m thinking they’ve simply made Veronica’s assault disappear. This worries me a bit. It’s dodgy to sweep past story elements under the rug. But it’s even more worrying to think that they’ve changed her character so abruptly.
WAIT! She’s just announced “Last time I crashed an 0-9’er party I got ridiculed, roofied and woke up missing my underwear.” But still… no talk about assault. Just implication.