I think it's interesting that for all the complaining about them, I'm of the opinion that the most popular era of pvp was the Pinnacle era, the Redrix, and really Not Forgotten, Luna's howl chase was massive. That time until they killed them was probably my most enjoyed Destiny time. Now i mostly read the forums as pvp has kinda long been forgotten. But i wasn't good at pvp and set a goal to get a Luna's howl. Largely because as a controller player 180 hand cannons were the only ones i could control at all and hand cannons were popular so Luna's looked like the only hand cannon made just for people like me that couldn't hit a whale with a 150. I had to actually watch tons of videos on how not to play like a losing player. I had to learn about when to use my supers, how to play my life, how to play from cover and reset. I got a Luna's and made the goal to go for Not Forgotten and honestly I had no real expectation to get near as i'd only been to barely Luna's rank. But in the following seasons i found my self hit the 4000s and thought, "you know maybe i could do it." I did and then was like. I'm going for Unbroken. It was literally the only reason i was playing Destiny and i got it right before everything got sunset and pinnacles were basically killed off. Pvp kinda died then for me. Stasis came in around then and everybody was getting frozen too. But since they got rid of pinnacles and kinda killed comp I stopped playing pvp and eventually stopped playing Destiny for the most part. I mostly just log on and check the vendors for god rolls now.
As for light and power level. I just don't engage in that grind. It was never my idea of fun. I did enjoy solo comp though.
I was actually a pvp first player. I just wasn't good. I just played six men and occasionally had a streak. Like D1 iron banner and that's what i did. I hated 3 v 3. Wasn't good at trials in d1. Never been to the light house.. Sucked with hand cannons in pvp. So if you remember you had to get like. certain amount of head shot kills i think it was with a hand cannon. So i was running around missing everything with ace of spades i think it was. I have to look up the gun. Yeah that's it. I almost got it mixed up with The Last Word. But you had to do a bunch of -blam!- just to get to the get luna's portion. Now i hated the mountain top quests as i had no grenade launchers with proximity.