You would have a point, if it wasn't for the fact that, in previous seasons of this game, the only way to be max level was to wear raid gear. The whole point of EL was to fix that problem, so that you can wear any set of legendary armor and still be max level. And lets be honest, I want to ascend my vendor gear, rather than just wear the set of PoE armor I get after 4 weeks. Because vendor armor has better/more relevant perks, and so far all PoE armor that has been sold has a pure stregth stat roll, which sucks. My vendor armor is just better in every way, so it needs to be ascended. And then there's the issue of weapons. During the first two seasons, vendor weapons were just as powerful as raid weapons. They all had the same attack rating. So if you could buy legendary weapons from vendors, you were set power-wise. You didn't need to play the raid to get the most powerful weapons. You could upgrade them just collecting materials in the ways I previously mentioned. That's not so anymore. All the new content has clearly been scaled for 365 attack weapons, so all my weapons that have 331 attack do noticeably less damage than they used to. In roc strikes, a single shot from my 331 Red Hand IX would kill a vandal in one headshot. It takes two headshots in the dragon playlist. In level 30 nightfalls with arc burn, my 331 arc LDR 5001 would kill a reaver vandal with a single headshot, and a reaver captain with two. In level 32 nightfalls, it takes an additional shot for each. I need to ascend these weapons, and I just can't. I know I'll get some eventually, but not enough. It's going to be such a slow process collecting it all without relentless grinding that I may not even have everything ascended before the next big expansion rolls around.

That fact that I just wrote? lol You make a good point with the weapons though. And I think the point of the poe gear is to give you an advantage in poe so it's easier to get the etheric light you need to level up the gear you actually want :p. If you've noticed they all have perks specifically for poe. I really don't understand the need for all that strength either though lol. It's supposed to take time to max out your character in mmo's, which is the type of platform bungie's going for.