I tend to agree with your statement about using non-elemental a in yr1 is equivalent to using blues now to a degree. I think a major issue there is that they were simply the best guns you could have. There were no kinetic weapons that equaled them, at least from what I remember. But I disagree with taking them out being a good idea. Mostly because Bungie has said that they want us to play how we want to play, but then they take out the guns that I enjoyed the most, not only using but striving to get from the raids. Granted there is more weapon variation now, at least with challenge of elders giving me options other than the raid weapons. Idk I think that if they had more kinetic, non-burn weapons that rivaled the burn weapons (with perks or stats or whatnot) it wouldn't be as restrictive as year 1 if they brought back elementals.