My suspicion, if Bungie put the time into setting up a playlist along the lines you describe, is that not that many people would play it tbh. Not unless Bungie also invested time in developing other incentives and specific bounties to encourage people to choose it over standard crucible. I'm not unsympathetic to the argument but I honestly think that it would have a pretty low population, it'd be mostly populated by some very sweaty shotgun apes, and that would keep the population low and the matchmaking times high.

I agree it wouldn't be the most popular mode and would involve bungie actually doing some work in the crucible which the seem fairly uninterested in🤣. But I do think a fair amount of people would play it, and then maybe more would realise how satisfying the gunplay and gunfights can be in this game. An alternative which I think could work would be to introduce some bigger maps, remember first light and skyshock from D1? That would reduce the CQC element and encourage more use of snipers, scouts and pulse rifles.

Yeah, I think new/returning maps is a better starting point because almost everyone would like and benefit from that whether they spend 1% or 100% of their time in crucible. It still stings a bit that we didn't get 2-3 new Europa maps with BL. I came to Destiny from Halo, the gunplay has always felt good to me. If they made the kind of playlist you've described it could be great, I just think they would need to spotlight it somehow to get people in there.