They said that they are adding a level to the weekly (so a level 30 weekly and nightfall). If it works like the weekly works for levels 24, 26, and 28, then a level 30 weekly should give you 12 strange coins. So that does help a bit. Then add in the fact that as the weeks go on Xur is going to be less and less likely to sell something that you actually want and I can see why they needed to add SOMETHING to spend coins on. The upgrade can't just add a node to an exotic because then everyone would have completely top of the line items in the first week. That being said, I think that they could do something else along the lines of making the upgrade cost more and maybe making 2 or 3 nodes extra instead of simply starting over again. There should be some way that they can balance us having to still work on the items while not having to regain the perks that make exotics worth having.

This. I know I'm not a great player and I know I will get better with experience. The weekly strikes are difficult to impossible to play alone. So getting strange coins is next to impossible unless they show up as random rewards. I'll play with other people if I know them. And I don't mind the strike playlist with matchmaking. So I know Bungie wants us to play the game "right" (read: their way or the highway) but they really need to work on scaling the difficulty better for players who are alone on purpose.