Its been interesting, the game has its roots in Halo, it was a great franchise. Rather well balanced game play. Go online with a team or alone, it would pair you up and you play. People played for the same reason they played soccer or basketball (minus the health benefits of said games).
Then came destiny, what they did was create weapons and armor with random mods, as these artifacts dropped, you had a chance to get a god role, same weapon as other but say with extra stability and head seeker (slight beter aim assist to head). all of a sudden you were god in PvP. This is why people ran the treadmill. Naturally the community complained and complained as not every one could get a god roll on weapons and artifacts. Then there were exotics, e.g. rocket launchers with tracking and proximity, you wanted that.
Secondly, the sweats complain there isn't much content at the same time they had god rolls and were unstoppable meanwhile the regular dad with two kids complained its impossible to get god rolls and be useful in PvP (or PvE for that matter). So its been a complicated balancing strategy for Bungie.
Not only that over the last 3-4 years, a game that had its origins in PvP evolved deep into a PvE + PvP game due to the community feedback. Come Destiny 2... those random mods are gone as Bungie realised those god rolls are a problem. Now you don't have rocket launchers with tracking and proximity, you don't have guns that generate ammo out of thin year (even though those two were probably the most liked weapons on Destiny 1). The game as you describe has become a meaningless treadmill. Made my life simpler as I only have one day job now. I prefer PvP only, I have the weapons/armor that work since there are no more random mods. I play a few games and log off.