if it takes 3 months to hit max level that's fine, but after 6 months I still haven't maxed out even one character. That blows.

I agree to an extent but if they can get somebody grinding for 6 months then that's 6 months of somebody putting hours into their game rather than 3. As players it can be frustrating but to a potential investor or even just to promote future DLC and "Destiny 2" the figures are all that counts. I think the only way to compromise between a business perspective and player perspective is to have multiple options for end game content. That way, the grind would retain its length but the players would have more variety so it wouldn't feel like such a grind. All of this could of course be solved by making the old raids drop 320 gear but if that isn't something they're looking at doing then they need to release multiple raids at once. People shouldn't have to do the exact same content multiple times in order to achieve a goal and challenge mode just doesn't cut it. If multiple raids came out at once then players could at least alternate the content they're playing to break up the monotony.

I completely agree with your point. Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm ok with grinding as long as it's forward. We also need a larger variety of gear and options on leveling that gear to max. I'm aware of the strategy to retain high player count and I'm done with it under the current systems.

It definitely needs some tweaking. I get why things are the way they are so it doesn't get under my skin too much but it should be top priority to make the old DLC (that people paid good money for) relevant. The fact that people are still doing old content now for gear that is widely unusable should really speak volumes to Bungie. It's good content that people enjoy and they don't even have to put too much development time into it as its content that already exists. They need to find that balance because after a certain point even the most die hard of destiny fans reaches their breaking point and that's when the grind starts having a negative effect as they slowly lose their player base.