imho, there were too many elemental primaries in year one - they became the go-to weapons for every encounter in PvE and no one used anything else. enemy shields became mostly inconsequential as they became so easy and consequence-free to take down. there still ought to be an exotic primary with each element (ie, zhalo), but you should be forced to make to use an exotic slot to do so. the Match Game modifier does help balance out elemental primaries, but it's used so infrequently that it doesn't really come into account for overall game balance. and while the raid weapons do generally seem uninspiring, they do come with something that other weapons do not: higher light. even if you don't want to use the gun itself, drops of those weapons still have value.