Certain things made it better. The rarity of Exotics made them seem more exotic. Etheric Light was great, it made everything viable again. However, somethings that everyone hated were fixed. No one liked spending 2 hours just to get enough materials to upgrade your new weapon, so now you can buy them. I like the legendary marks better than the old Vanguard and Crucible marks, because you can get them from a lot more places.

No, imo. First reason being the cryptarch making Legendaries into Rares, making the only real way to get Legendary items was Faction/Crucible/Vanguard using marks, BUT even then you had to be at least rank 2/3 to even buy anything. Lootcave was a good source for engrams but even then you'd be at the mercy of the cryptarch. QueensWrath was a good way of getting Legendary gear. (I got my first legendary helm from a bounty) IronBanner was good if you had gear to even compete. VoG had you want to tear you hair out if you didn't get a piece of armor you needed. (#Forever29) Same goes for Crota. HoW was weird, for lack of a better word. Etheric light made EVERYTHING relevant again. And introduced new ways to get gear like Trials of Osiris and PoE armor/weapon cores.

Imo yes. I loved the grind. Top light is so easy to achieve now. Also, everyone has everything so no one is really special or different. Im a die-hard year 1 Destiny player and would give anything for them to bring that experience back.