I would hardly say that the Bond Brothers was the defacto strike in all of Destiny, and should be the gold standard for all Destiny 2 strikes. It seems like you just remember it fondly as a player and are falsely equating out a strike that you really liked to being the gold standard...but that's not really true because almost every strike in Destiny followed a strict formula: Step 1: Snappy dialogue to get you interested. Step 2: Mid-way gimmick encounter (boss fight or otherwise) that halted progression for a moment. Step 3: Big boss battle, often with another gimmicky mechanic or a neat setting Step 4: Witty dialogue at the end (likely from Cayde-6 since he was the only character that had any kind of development). Let's break a few of them down that fall into this category. Archon Priest: Step 1: Snappy dialogue talks about an Archon Priest escaping the Prison of Elders and needs to be recaptured or killed. Interest peaks. Step 2: Mid-way gimmick begins with door opening sequence, you gotta wait 3 rounds of multiple waves of fallen or taken enemies to advance. Step 3: Big boss battle, no gimmicky mechanic, but does have a really cool setting. You can either fight him as a Fallen Captain or as a Taken Captain summoning an endless army of Taken Centurions. Step 4: Witty ending dialogue. The Devil's Lair: Step 1: Snappy dialogue gets you interested in the fact that the Devil's house of Fallen have re-summoned another God servitor and it needs to be destroyed. If you do the Siva version, Shiro-6 tells you it's infected by Siva. Again, interest peaks. Step 2: Mid-way gimmick of fighting a giant spider tank. Siva'd or not, it's a spider tank, needs to be killed, halts progression. Step 3: Big boss battle. Spawns waves of adds every 25% of health if on normal Devil's Lair. If its Devil's Lair Siva edition, gains an elemental shield that matches the elements of the type of scorch cannon the designated captains drop, disable boss shield with cannons to progress. Adds still spawn every 25% of health. Gimmicky mechanic. Step 4: Shiro-6 tells you about dumb stuff with witty ending dialogue. Bond Brothers: Step 1: Cayde-6 tells you about the Bond Brothers. Since Cayde-6 is the only character people even remotely gave two shits about, you're almost interested specifically because Cayde-6 told you that you should be. Step 2: Mid-way progression halting gimmick of fighting a Siege Tank. Taken version has you fighting a Seige Tank that oddly enough only shoots at you and not at any of the Taken, and non taken version just has you fighting Cabal as normal. Step 3: Big boss battle. Gimmick is that you're fighting 2 bosses this time, each with their own set of abilities. Except not really. One stands there and shoots stuff at you, the other runs at you and slams you. Nothing special, get both down to half HP, then fight both at once, with loads of enemies, that's it. Step 4: Cayde-6 once again speaks and half the time you aren't even paying attention to what he says since you know it's Cayde-6 and anything he says is apparently gospel in this franchise. How about another strike that fits that double boss formula. The Tech Priest: Step 1: Witty dialogue from Cayde--I mean Shiro-6 about the Tech Priest in the Badla--I mean the Cosmodrome and how he's capturing Hive. Step 2: Mid way mechanic gimmick of finding these Siva Nodes and destroying them to open giant doors. Basically a scavenger hunt where all you're finding are stupid little nodes to shoot that waste your time. Halts progression almost entirely. Step 3: Big boss battle. Against the Tech Priest and his giant Ogre minion. Ogre is immune, of course, because if he wasn't he'd just get vandal blasted by Gjallarhorn in under a minute so to preserve another stupid gimmicky mechanic he's immortal and cannot die. The Ogre casually chases a random team mate around the arena while the boss shoots at you with his Ogre eye beam cannon. After Priest gets to half HP, Ogre becomes enraged, and now chases you quickly around the room and is much more aggro while the Priest is firing at you. Kill boss, Ogre dies. Whoopty doo. Step 4: Ending dialogue that Shiro says and is almost always ignored. These are just a few examples, but I can assure you that every strike in Destiny follows this formula. Destiny 2 strikes aren't perfect, but lets not pretend that Destiny strikes are the greatest things to ever exist in that game because they are gimmicky at best, and monotonous garbage at worst.