Noticed no difference with the red death, thorn, last word, shingen-e, corrective measure, redhand IX, aries nemesis X4, proxima centauri II, unwilling soul-09 and strange suspect. Also there is a video of a lvl 4 Warlock taking and dealing the same damage as you would expect in regular pvp. Those guns range from fully upgraded to no upgrades and some I upgraded in-between matches. As for your little speech about skill, we have the crucible modes for that, the idea and appeal of the iron banner was to see how OP you can get by bringing out your best weapons and armor, that is how it was marketed and what it failed to deliver on. The common theme here seems to be release the same content only with a few bounties and some slight alterations to the rewards. The fact that someone like Deej is coming out and saying oh we will explain why this game mode plays nothing like it was advertised half way through the week long event, it is understandable why people would throw around words like liars and incompetent.