Here is the reason weapon retirement works. One it forces the meta to change without constantly having to monitor the sandbox every single season. Second it forces you to work at new content in ways you have not had to, creating a fresh experience. The reality is the reason the game is getting stale is that no one wants to give up their god roll weapons in PvE or PvP. Its the same 5-10 weapons in use for both and that is a problem. No one is forcing you to never use the weapon again. You want to replay GoS, Scourge, or any legacy content with your bygones, blast furnace, recluse, or midnight coup? Go for it, they will still be at a power level that allows that. Whatever new content comes out though you will have to adapt and learn to beat it by trying something new which is legitimately what half of you people -blam!- about constantly. "All they do is recycle and nothing feels new" They come out and say hey we are going to retire old weapons so we can focus more heavily on new stuff to create a new play environment and everyone goes no we dont want that..... So which is it do you want new or not? This isnt even a new concept, they did this in D1 with the taken king because the fact was the same weapons were just constantly being used and it was getting old. It forced you to handle things differently and adapt something new, and because of that it is still considered one of the best destiny DLC's. Call me a fan boy if you want but the fact of the matter is I will happily be forced to take off my recluse because i cant use it anymore to try something new because right now why would i try something new if i know i dont have to and what im using works? That is also all just for the PvE side of things look at PvP and its even worse spare rations, revoker, beloved, and hammer head... Thats all anyone uses, with the return of trials is imperative to have a way to constantly help change the meta otherwise its just boring and stale the same as PvE is right now. You want to stick with the old thats fine dont buy the new stuff and just play the old stuff with your same weapons. No one has a gun to your head saying hey keep playing the new stuff and use new weapons.