And this right here is the only logical conclusion one can arrive at. Staten leaves late last year, game gets delayed, and then releases in an unrecognizable form. Pretty obvious what happened.

Don't go looking any further, they simply had to hack through contents to make it fit in with the imposed initial release/season pass formula. Looks like they simply butchered the whole damn thing instead of selecting and extracting a linear and logical story line. I am one hundred percent certain that a lot of lore and elements concerning the following DLCs were present in most of the cut-scenes and Ghost monologues we should have had. Instead of editing each scene to keep it logical, they simply selected those which did not mention the following DLCs, thus of course creating a gaping hole in the story line, or more like making it look minimalized to the extreme. You get at the end only glimpses and mentions of what you'll get once you pay more, each cut scene becoming, in the end an advertisement (cf 'I could tell you about the Traveler's agony", the Huntress talking to who ?, the specter telling you something else is coming from the Summoning Pits after you've killed Phogoth, and dozen more). I'm not saying this as a conspirationist nutjob, it's just from my own experience with story telling and removing contents from an essay or an article after your boss tells you that it's taking too much space. When you read what's left, the brutality of the removal is simply obvious, just like Destiny's whole story line. I love Destiny, but I love well done stories even more and I don't think I will ever forgive the way they have treated literature in this game, just like a tool to grab money, an appetizer. Not like they'd care anyway, I'm still giving money it's not like my butthurt bookworm feelings matter here.