(Short take - IB fun outweighed by the poor loot)
I played a ton of IB on all three of my Guardians and encountered very little of the problems others reported.
I was playing to get the new (actually old D1) armor sets, finally getting all pieces, but not a single one was worth keeping. All were in the high 50s to low 60s in stats, which were poorly distributed (even after using the stupidity expensive focusing from Shaxx).
In contrast, many of my existing favorite armor pieces came from previous seasons' IBs. I got a fair number of 65+ pieces back then. So what happened? Was this just bad RNG, or did the armor get toned down?
The special shader was nice but has some unattractive brown and green highlights that I didn't like.
The weapons were a disaster. With the ridiculous number of Blowout rocket launchers, it meant a lesser chance of getting a good roll on the other weapons because so few dropped. Even then, the weapons mostly ranged from poor to mediocre.
So, in the end, I got a shader that is only good on select items, armor I could only use for transmogging, and a mere handful of keeper weapons.
In summary, IB can be fun, but only for a relatively short while. Something is needed to spice up the rewards to add more loot to the shooting.
Looking back at how badly my engrams and rewards turned out and how low stat the armor was, I can't say IB was time wisely spent when other things in the game drop better armor and weapons and are just as fun (or more) to play.
Cheap Mexican and Iron Banana have one thing in common... guaranteed Blowouts. 🤣
Seriously though, the loot needs to improve. Even with focusing, I only got like 3 or 4 weapons worth keeping out of 50ish iron banana engrams and a maybe about 15 of them focused. (I reset rank 3 times this season). That is nuts. Granted, I already had good rolls of older weapons.
Classically, IB is the only time I bother with PvP. It had no loot worth chasing. The unusual shader shouldn't have been the high time cost ie double reset reward. And there is little to no weapons to chase now. Allied Demand was the last remaining item of the slim pickings, to me that is.
The wolf pelt cloak was the only decent piece amongst the 3 sets and that was all down to the almighty RNG. The rest was insta-dismantled.
The mode and meta still needs work and rethinking. The bubble battles were tiresome and need adjustment without destruction. Witherhoard crutching was at an all time high and that too needs adjusting... WITH destruction preferably.
There was no instantly leaving Twilight Gap however, so it wasn't all bad.
Needs more loot, tweaks, more cosmetics/finishers/emotes.
Also kill counts and KA/D results would've been nice.