I get that it will be stronger but my point is that i have limited playtime and everything they seem to be doing requires me to miraculously have more or fall further and further behind. I'm already way behind most of my friends but they're just making it worse. Do they not realize that they're just screwing the game up more and more for casual players?

I definitely empathize with your point that this game takes a huge amount of time. I'm 48, with a family, a job, and a business, and I can't actually believe how much time I have spent on this game — more than the last few games I've played put together. I have a fairly large group of gaming friends, and we have all had similar experiences with this game; we find ourselves putting much, MUCH more time into it than we would've imagined. That being said, I think that bungie has provided an upgrade path that is considerably less time-consuming than it could have been, and considerably better than simply not giving us exotic weapons that we can keep. I only intend to upgrade a few weapons, at least at first, and this will probably happen just as part of the regular gameplay. I honestly don't think it will be as difficult as you think it might be, but I suppose we shall see!