How the hell is Destiny as meh as it is if it has been in development for that long? I didn't even realise!

Hopefully this answers your question: Where Did Destinies Story Go? Let me put this out there..... Joe Staten was the Design / Creative Director, Head of Cinematics, and lead writer for Destiny. He left Bungie after working on Destiny for 4 years. Not only was he in charge of the narrative, he was also in charge of giving feedback to all other Bungie employees and Activision directs. He also directed all of the cut scenes (most of which were cut from the game because the direction was lost). He left to work with Microsoft again. Now, because of a non compete clause within the Activision / Bungie contract, he can't work directly on a competing game unless he could get an amendment approved. So what does that leave us with? Well, forget about a thought out story line in our near future. Destiny is evolving into new perimeters that weren't necessarily conceived 4 years ago when it was created. Luke Smith made an interesting article years back when he worked for 1up.com...... he blasted how OP the combination of the plasma pistol / battle rifle were in Halo 2's multiplayer. Now, he said this was an issue and needed to be addressed because it gave an incredible advantage to the user. I.E. Thorn / Fellwinter's Lie or Thorn / Any Last Round Sniper. He also made a comment about matchmaking issues and the need for a dedicated server. Sound familiar? Smith is now Game Director at Bungie, yet these issues that he perceived years back are still being talked about in the community. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC8QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.1up.com%2Ffeatures%2Fbroken-halo%3Fpager.offset%3D1&ei=fGqQVemzGIbAggTx7pqoAw&usg=AFQjCNEjrGVaFQKPPXMLR2di4NyzIkwQ9Q What I'm basically saying is, you can look into the past all you want for this game. But we aren't going to get a rich, intuitive story line like we keep falling for in this game. The Taken King will be a remade version of Vanilla Destiny. We're going grind patrols, strikes, a new raid like we did when we first bought the game. The story missions / quests will be a necessity to get our new abilities, but they'll lack the structure we keep expecting. The PvP side of this game will slowly become the prevalent centerpiece for marketing because it attracts the youth of today. Unfortunately, complex story lines aren't as profitable and marketable as the repetitive point and shoot style are youth beg for in gaming. Hopefully, a company will come out and create a distinct open world platform that allows players to co-op through extensive story lines that compels hours of gameplay without repeating the same missions through modifications. But until then, here's my $40 Bungie..... lets grind.

Did he quit or get fired? Ive heard both.

I believe he left of his own accord because Bungie wouldn't be dumb enough to fire him after he put so much work into the game. However the industry is capable of covering a lot of stuff up so I don't think anyone knows for sure.