A. Elemental primaries were used to make end game content way too easy. B. It seems as if they replaced element burns with specific enemy burns. Like the raid weapons all drop with Will of Light as an extra damage buff, instead of a weapon that will do against every enemy with a certain shield, they'll do well against an entire race or specific enemy of that race. Also allows for more variety depending on perk sets and why a Raid anything of the same light as a nonRaid gun will do more damage. C. By not having them it allows people to use variety in whatever encounter they do, unless you know about D. which we'll get to in a second. Anyways, some people will prefer Hung Jury, some people will prefer The Vanity, some people will prefer Imago Loop, some people will prefer Apple of Discord, others still will prefer The Villainy and yet someone else may go with Answering Chord. D. You're over 300 light, and facing a solar activity. Normally we'd bust out the effective solar gun for that level...well now there technically is none, or is there? Nightfall is a 280 activity, say it has solar burn, seeing you're a 300 with everything else, crack out that VoC on Nightfall. You will do more DPS with your 170 primary being around a 285 light than someone using their Hung Jury being 300 light. It's a 280 light activity and you're total light will be higher than the activity even with a Y1 weapon.