They are concluding from the statistics that auto rifles are being used more by the majority percentage because other weapons are not as viable. People already voiced their concerns. Pulse rifles are trash, auto rifles rule. And not from an aesthetic point of view. The most reasonable action would be to balance this by reducing performance of auto rifles and buffing performance of pulse rifles and see if that would make a shift in weapon usage. To do nothing is unreasonable.

Im over the PVP mindset driving decisions.

Story weapon balancing is as follows: Auto Rifles= 18% Scout Rifles= 16% Pulse Rifles= 6% Hand Cannons= 13% Looks to me that the only weapon out of balance is the Pulse Rifle...Add 7-10% damage buff and call it a day would be my solution.

Understandable, but in the long run it was already stated that doing that would increase kill times, which may be desirable, but it takes away from that was well. They could buff all day long and that would result in quick as hell firefights that would rely more on twitch reaction instead of having time to think, shoot and still aim. I mean with that kind of balance you could just call one shot pistols completely balanced, but it just isn't fun. So to avoid this situation, it is reasonable to believe that lowering damage to a standard across all weapon behaviors would keep kill times appropriate without removing weapon aesthetic variety.

My main issue, Proto, is that this(Bungie's) mentality is founded on the PVP element. Where I put little stock.

Understandable. It's just that other people are too and I believe it's in concern with the entire game, not just pvp. I believe this was a decision made wholly.