Kudos for a really well written post my friend. Everything you stated is so very true. Hell I remember at launch when everyone was using the Strangers Rilfe and the first AR you get at the start of the game in Crucible and were wrecking. You know what happened? Nerf posts all over the place. If enough ppl started saying NLB was the sh*t ppl would probably use it. Shortly followed by nerf requests. The sad thing is it's the nerfs made already that have created this problem. Iron Banner and ToO aren't supposed to be balanced. The only way to achieve true balance in Crucible would be to give everyone vanilla guns, just like Halo.