Placeholder is done with whiteboxing, which means low poly meshes, temp textures... you block out the area.
What you are saying is that a company with cca. 500 employees needs 4 months to place enemies in the level and produce handfull of new 3d art meshes? The sooner you realize we got -blam!-, the better. Don't get me wrong, I still play the game every day...
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I play the game most days too. Hooray for addictiveness. I'd say the fact that the environments are there, ready for placing enemies and other bits and bobs makes them essentially placeholders. Bungie follow a roadmap for pushing this stuff out I would think, which is why it seems trivial, but it's taken this much time to get out the door.