I've been noting a discouraging aspect with this game which will only get worse as time goes by. Right now we're only seeing it with armor, but recent information released by Bungie indicates it will soon apply to weapons as well. It appears Bungie expects us to progress in this game by replacing armor with pieces capable of providing greater light values. This is pretty manageable with blues, but once you get into legendary territory, it starts to take a freaking eternity and a LOT of upgrade materials to bring a new piece up to par. Meanwhile, you suffer diminished light level for this considerable period of time, which is only exacerbated if you don't have enough ascended materials to fully upgrade. This will only become worse and worse as light levels increase. Which brings me to the conclusion: One of the following needs to be fixed: 1 - the concept of "leveling" gear. 2 - the concept of having to replace gear to progress. If we're expected to level gear, we should be upgrading by looting augments to our existing legendary gear. (you could even have slots for the special bonuses, allowing people to replace and optimize them) If we're expected to replace gear, the upgrade process needs to be streamlined so a "better" piece of gear doesn't result in tremendous downtime and reduction in power for extended periods of time.