You don't have to upgrade them. You have a choice to make it 323 or keep it at 300. Of course, restarting means back dedication though.

It has nothing to do with letting anyone 'catch up' to you or 'feeling better about themselves'. Resetting the weapons is to upgrade the base damage over all so it is on par with the new exotics. Sure, the upgrades get reset but you start with a higher base attack damage than before and when you max it out, it will be higher than 300. Otherwise, players would stop using the guns they put so much time into leveling up with materials and energies because the new exotics would do more damage. And then they would all complain about wasted time/materials. Plus, now that you can buy the materials from the vendors, leveling your Thunderlord should take half the time.

I understand your point, but it took hours to get that much glimmer, relic iron, Ascendent Shards, and Weapon Parts. That was not a stroll in the park.

I'm not saying it was. But they have actually made it easier to upgrade exotics going forward. 1. You don't need ascendant materials at all. 2. You can buy the material needed to upgrade your weapon entirely in less than 1 week with your vanguard/crucible marks. 3. You only need 1 exotic shard to complete your weapon upgrade. You also have the option of not keeping that current weapon and just scrapping it for exotic shards. Yeah, it took a lot of time to level stuff up. But people who continue to play this game are going to be doing nothing [b]but[/b] level stuff up.

True, it just makes my effort seem a little wasted.