I'm guessing this is miscomunication. A lot of people expected to romp stomp people lower then them. It didn't help that bungie was vague on the description of this. DeeJ will probably give the long explination of how stats work. Honestly i'm noticing a difference. My level 29 hunter can't insta kill with a throwing knife to the head on most titans unless their bar is below half. I also feel like i'm dying faster then normal because of my really low armor rating. (i invested my passives in agility and recovery.) If i had to guess the difference in IB is no more then 3-4 bullets. Which deff does matter especially when you use a single shot or pulse rifle. I don't think damage is directly messed with either. Just armor rating and level. Level's artifically effect damage output in PvE. So to an extent it does in PvP IB. Just not as drastically as it can get in PvE when you are shooting at things higher then you.