My advice for you is to make your own groups using lfg. Yesterday I wanted to do a normal mode raid. I was 293 light but had a lot of experience from earlier raids on xbox. Mentioned that in several posts and friend request to people looking for more to join their raid, still after an hour no one took me. So I just started making a group myself, got 5 other people in my group and beat the raid. So just take the initiative. If some elitist joins and complains about your light level you can just kick him. There are plenty of non-assholes to take his spot :) 309 is good enough for hard mode.