To be fair, bad Crucible players would never be able to get decent weaponry if there was a system that punished them. I do think it's silly that good players are never adequately rewarded with anything in the Crucible, but if they were then beginners would not feel that it is a fair system. It's a double-edged sword, really. I'd also like to point out that he may have joined the match later on. I personally received my Thunderlord when joining a Control game where the opposing team was already at 18000 and we had lost only a minute or two afterwards.