Im not dissapointed, however, I see it as a missed opportunity to explore perhaps. I think enough folks have seen how destiny works to appreciate end game content is not going to be matchmade. That said, BNG, is listening and adapting, making changes and evolving the game. I feel like they have made numerous steps in the right direction after several missteps. Here, to your point, they could have given OPTIONAL matchmaking or opt-in matchmaking a try - at least on the first challenge mode capped at 32... aterall, we will all be at 34 eventually. If you default the oprion to NOT match make... but let players opt in... what does it hurt? If you want to play with others and your friends arent online - great... maybe you make new friends? Seems reasonable to explore. In their defense - maybe that is also exactly what they are doing in the level 28 arena... approaching matchmade cautiously, and who knows... could enable it further in a future update... maybe this is a test of sorts. I give them a bit more credit here in the end. They did give us some matchmade options to try... play lev 28... make friends... move into harder content... not a terrible plan (test?) If they wanted to wade into these waters cautiously.... and definitely better than not seeing it at all.

A well thought out optional matching system surely is not that hard to implement and would mean a lot of people who paid for the orignal game and then the dlc and how will get value for money. Seems the reward system is pretty bad and there will be a lot of new armour that will not get fully upgraded.

Yes, definitely disappointing. I think OPTIONAL matchmaking would work fine on at least the PoE events up to level 32 as long as Bungie put some sensible minimum character level requirements on each of them.