I see your point, however allow me to offer a counter perspective. To start I have played MMO’s and RPG’s most of my life. WoW, Guild Wars, FFXIV, etc. and those games all had a grind component to them. A much larger grind component in fact. Back in the early WoW days (and this might still be the case) you could find private servers in the web. I was a much younger man then and I wanted to “skip the grind” so I joined one, leveled to max immediately through console commands and gave myself all the best loot in the game. Within a week I had run out of content to do because I had cheated through the entire thing, although this wasn’t against the rules on a private server so... whatever. I found myself quickly going back to the grind and enjoying the game much better playing the legitimate way and went on to play lots of end game content, which also had a grind component. What’s the point of this story and what’s the difference? The grind is a component of these types of games. It’s not my favorite part but it’s consistent across MMO’s, RPG’s, etc. and will continue to be until a company can figure out a way to produce content as fast as the players can consume it. So locking end game content behind a grind is supposed to be the prize at the end. If you didn’t work hard to get there, I promise you the reward at the end isn’t as sweet. “Oh but I’m tired of the grind, I paid for the content, it’s been 6 years of the same crap, blah blah blah” yeah I get it. Been here since Beta and I’m getting to that. Now for the difference. MMO’s and other RPG’s (by the way that’s what destiny is fundamentally) typically have large engaging worlds with a variety of things to do on the side for players while still allowing them to engage in the world. Destiny’s options are 1.) crucible which isn’t in the best state 2.) Gambit and Gambit prime which is in an even worse state 3.) collecting Lore which destiny actually has a lot of really engaging lore and 4.)..... not much else... that is really worth doing in any meaningful way between start to finish or at least low stress and still fun. Something I LOVED was Sparrow Racing League. Armor didn’t mean shit and the shaders kinda sucked but man was it fun talking shit to my clan mates. An ACTUAL CRAFTING activity could help. More frequent side quest content drops perhaps. Anyways that turned a little ranty and I’m sorry for that. TLDR: End game content will always be locked behind a grind wall because studios cannot create content as fast as we consume it so adding things to do between the start and end of the grind would be more enjoyable than just taking the grind out.