But literally the time to benefit ratio was terrible strikes are way faster

Not for crucible marks, which let you buy faction gear if you wanted it. Besides, acquiring materials doesn't take much time if you know where to look and how nodes work. On a good run you can easily get 50 mats in under 15min. Now it takes far more time to acquire crucible marks than it ever did before, and if you don't enjoy the PvP it's even less fun than pop'n off a series of nodes.