I've noted this for a bit. Gear was designed to be "balanced" in the game, but it seems to be ever so greatly watered down at higher qualities to make sure it's not supposed to be overpowering. Then we have things like the IB here where it's supposed to be all about the overpowered gear. To a large degree it seems that Bungie is suffering from the same problem as the Gearbox guys when it comes to the concepts of high quality gear. They seem to think that they need to dumb it down to the point of being near pointless to have it. Case in point... what's the real difference between the unique hand cannons and any of the purple ones that you can buy/find? Maybe a couple of different perks and a fancy display model right?