Yes, there are. I've officially completed the raid. If you count "being a placeholder for the last couple of encounters, when you have no idea what the heck is happening" as completing the raid. Bungie seems to think it does. I have to respectfully disagree. (But the gods of RNG took pity on me--for once. I came out with the Epilogue.) Anyway, life is busy for lots of us. Free time is limited and unpredictable. If you're like this, most of your real-life friends are likely in the same boat, and getting 6 of you together for any length of time is a major undertaking. Making friends in-game is time consuming and requires a somewhat regular schedule of play. Having experienced some truly amazing thing during matchmade strikes, playing the raid with randoms doesn't sound like all that much fun. Specific to me: I hit the soft cap about the same time as the others I was likely to run the raid with (and when I had free time to exploit!), but somehow offended the gods of RNG. From that point, it took over a week of grinding before running the raid was even an option. By the time I got leveled up, teams were pretty well established among the contacts I'd made, and my window of free time had pretty much slammed shut. I might get the chance to take another crack at it for a couple of days in a week or so. Or I might have to wait until after Christmas break. That's life.