Simply put, there's no reason NOT to allow continued gear ascension of all Year 1 stuff. There's no reason why Etheric Light still shouldn't be a thing. People weren't pitching a fit about House of Wolves having it, no one would bat an eye if TTK had it. People were still getting Dark Below and House of Wolves stuff even WITH Etheric Light being in the game, so that clearly does not dictate whether or not players embrace new content like Bungie was going on about. All this does? Is totally invalidate the past year spent on this game. People made friends? Sure, whatever, you could make friends anywhere doing anything that involved interacting with others. Its not as if Destiny is special in this regard. I've made plenty of friends playing multiplayer on Halo for crying out loud, ya know? So meeting new people doesn't serve as a viable reason either. Ultimately, the time you invested in the game this past year, without continued gear ascension, was a total waste of time and effort.