Isn't that just the armor the people had on their guardians when playing the Inverted Spire Strike. The hunter armor on that concept is exactly that armor. And it was certainly NOT called "Parade Armor" (or it is an internal classification from the devs). It's also seen on every wallpaper, render art for each class. The guardians in the Strike etc used endgame gear and weapons and were level 20 already. In the gameplay we have seen armor does not get damaged from enemy fire. So such a feature does not exist which leads to the conclusion that it is not the exact same armor. So we can be very sure about the fact that the armor you get after the beginning of the Ghaul cutscene (when he kicks you over the ledge) is just a destroyed low level copy of the named armor (as seen on some screenshots) and LATER, my guess, the high level parade armor will be the available as the vanguard vendor armor again or so (after completing story, getting stronger, blah blah and stuff). That's exactly why Bungie didn't show any gameplay what happens after that scene except for a few short clips. And we have no menu shots to showcase the destroyed armor. I highly doubt that you actually start and keep that legendary gear when the crucible reveals always showcased guardians with basic looking gear (except for the IGN dev builds). You might start with the Vanguard version before the specific cutscene, but It wouldn't make any sense having you keeping the best gear (with good perks) and all you do is infusing the hell out of it. That would be counter productive to any loot system and the progression system visually showing how you get stronger over time (armor, guns) which is what Bungie tries to tell with the story. Rising up from zero to hero again. In short: You start totally maxed during the Homecoming mission because we just defeated the darkness and so on (short teaser for what a powerful guardian looks like, for new players). Ghaul comes, takes our light (level 1 again), destroyed the stuff we had (introduction of new toys), made us look like a fool and weak bastard (destroyed armor). And that's where the real game starts. Many games before used an introduction like that.