Yes they are, otherwise you'd get to experience everything in it.
You have to work to achieve and earn things in this game. That is what "aspiration" is. You work hard for that feeling of accomplishment and hard earned victory.
There's a difference between aspirational and monotonous
Going Flawless is aspirational
Going for god roll Adept weapons in D1 was aspirational
Getting raid exotics is aspirational
Having the community do 9mil of the worst received public event in Destiny's history just to unlock a recycled gun is not aspirational...especially this late in the season when no one even wants to do this anymore
Look at the forums...it isn't a bunch of people wanting the gun handed to them for free...it's people giving up on the game.
It's people that would rather do anything else besides more of these public events that we've already been doing for 2 months for the quest.
This is monotonous.