What you described is a slightly above average player. A good player knows their guns good and bad, knows the maps and is adaptable, but is also working on using the guns they are bad with to become better, giving them greater understanding and even more potential adaptability. A good players has few holes in their overall game

Well let's be honest here, there's no reason at all not to run around with thorn/hawkmoon and a good felwinter. That is CLEARLY the best combo for anyone with the skill to use it. It doesn't matter how adaptable you are, if you're using a legendary scout/auto/pulse rifle (or even exotic really) against an exotic hand cannon you aren't going to win unless you get the jump on them. The balance in this game is awful, there's three guns that are OBVIOUSLY better than all other guns. That being said I'm using a legendary pulse rifle and am smart enough to not put myself in losing situations against the huge number of people using the exotic hand cannons

No hawkmoon for me as on Xbox 1. Looking forward to getting it but each gun has a counter. Thorn breeds a laziness in most players so their short game suffers, similarly TLW users get overconfident at closing, at least in my experience. These are pretty broad generalisations and the guns you mentioned are all "meta" guns for most people. I try to keep a wide variety of weapons on board as well as the guns you mentioned so I can change up and force a few people to change their style. Getting people angry and making me their prime target usually allows them to make mistakes which I or others can capitalise on. The game is short on tactics but players can always be played. I'm not the best by any stretch and hope I'm not coming off that way, I get my ass handed to me plenty, lag or no

You're right, the tactics you put forward are going to work in most crucible situations. But there's no arguing that people who use the exotic hand cannons are at an advantage over anyone who isn't. Using another gun against someone who's good and using an exotic hand cannon is overall putting you at a disadvantage.

Absolutely, I find myself using tlw a lot more than I ever used to because a lot of the maps now are close range run and gun affairs. I was never a shotty guy but again I have had to adapt and now run at least one on each character. It wasn't initially fun using shotguns and still isn't but its a standard that can't be ignored. I hope bungie release more varied maps in the future but I doubt they will.