But its not progress throttling... You progress in light level without infusioning.... The only thing Infusion does hinder what you can use forcing you to grind boring content for cores or just use any old crap that drops at a higher light from milestones this is not progress throttling and it does not offer a feeling of progression as Bungie insists as again the milestones drop at a higher light which is how you progress and has nothing to do with enhancement cores.

having your favorite items available at a needed level is also a type of progress, gearing is one of the most basic RPG progressions

I agree its a basic RPG feature to level gear and its normally very cheap and easy to do but the enhancement cores turn a basic thing into a major time consuming task when it shouldn't be... you either ignore infusioning and use anything that drops or you waste many hours grinding for cores.... I've put 60+ hours into Division 2 over the last few weeks and not once have I had to stop and go grind some arbitrary resource to progress... yet every time I play Destiny 2 this is something that is always an issue now... it wasn't an issue in year 1...