You came closer than anyone else I've seen to finding the source-not bungie, not casuals necessarily, but this [quote]the first half of y2[/quote] What happened after the first half of year 2? Oh yeah, the April update. What did that introduce? That's right. Rewards from the raid and challenge of elders scaled to your light level. This caused a huge amount of grinding to suddenly vanish from the game-and its expansion only lessened the grinding needed.