Upgrading a weapon in D1 wasn’t that bad. For instance, Super Good Advice could be fully upgraded with 8 motes of light (5 or 6 motes if you used a MG Telemetry). The only difficulty was with the year 1 raid gear that required Raid material to upgrade and that was only a problem if you didn’t raid. True, enhancement cores should be completely removed, but that’s most likely not going to happen. This is a compromise that Bungie should be able to live with, but as stubborn as they appear to be I don’t think they will. There have been reasonable suggestions made over many months now and they have ignored them all. They would rather kill the game than give up cores. This is just my opinion, but I see cores as a small part of a bigger issue. Leveling up is completely screwed up and in need of an overhaul. It’s the reason I stopped playing.