I see your point for weapons. Though most of the faction weapons tend to be perked toward PvP. Not to say they don't kick ass in PvE, but they seem more geared toward PvP. If you're after armor, it's a bit of a waste if you're shooting for endgame. I get that people don't want to grind PvP for gear, but honestly I never had to grind endless strikes or PvP. I did bounties and played the game to get my vanguard gear before raid gear. Never felt grindy. By the time I rolled my titian I had nearly a full set for him and my warlock. I had everything but gloves/boots for my titian. Got gloves in a drop shortly after hitting 20. Had almost 65 marks by then for boots and only had to "grind" two strikes to get the 6 marks I needed. My warlock isn't even 20 yet and I have everything but boots, including an legendary and exotic helm and gloves. So i'm not too worried there either. Raid/IB gear gets you to 30, everything in between fills a niche to reach said goal. If you level beyond 27/28 Non-raid gear wise, you're kinda wasting your time. You'll get raid gear and just have to regrind to get it full. Save a few extra shards and don't max out non light 30 gear. I get that the perks are mainly what you're after, but again, unless you're filling a niche and sticking at level 27-29, there really isn't a point in going outside the vanguard for gear to get to endgame. People do have PvP sets of gear, though if you are that person you more than likely don't need to trade mats for marks/reps. Granted with crucible marks it was possible to have a full set of purple gear right off the bat; provided you had maxed 200 vanguard and 200 crucible marks. Though again, you're just speeding up your sprint to the glass ceiling and grinding for Raid gear.