Surely that dialogue is meant to be bad on purpose?
Still reading the post but I'm surprised they didn't have fast travel in the first game.
In Destiny 1 if you were going to free roam (called Patrol) any of the planets, there was only one spawn point for free roam, you could select specific missions on the map, several having different spawn points and just not do the mission, but then you would constantly have the mission's waypoint on your screen.
Sounds a lot like they fell into the trap of over balancing.
For sure, most the guns just feel straight up bad to use, like you're sitting there firing them, landing all shots, and just not doing any damage at all. There are basically 3-4 guns in each slot that feel good, but those don't feel near as good as even bottom tier guns from Destiny 1.
My biggest gripe is honestly just the removal of so much content/activities and the tiny quality of life changes that were made over Destiny 1s lifespan is just straight up missing.
Ding!