They do know what they're doing, they listen to players, then do the opposite. I did solo ops and fireteam ops up until master, but then stopped playing fireteam ops because rewards wasn't worth the grind for, and even though i had it set to 'A' rank i was getting 'B' rank rewards. If fireream ops had different rewards worth getting than solo ops players would play it more. I'm at 410, when i get to 450 I've a friend that can only play once a week, so if he can join me and scale to my level to get tier 5 gear from day 1 of ash of iron that would be great.