Primaries that do elemental and have year one perks would make pve too easy in their mind. We have seen a shift away from this with TTK. Raid weapons don't do elemental, only the one exotic auto rifle does arc. Most of the y2 guns are averaged out to do similar damage. The perks are nowhere near what they were on those y1 guns. I think raid items should be able to be ascended, because they took the most work. Unfortunately if bungie allowed this, it would show how bad y2 guns are. Most of the y1 guns will destroy y2 ones in crucible even with the nerfs. In pve this means a large amount of players would still run around with fatebringer, sword breaker, hunger (etc.) And unfortunately bungie doesn't seem to support the idea of playing old content. Without y1 ascension, all the raids and poe are empty and nobody wants to play much anymore. This is because there is no value for players that just want gear. If they allowed ascension of that gear, people would still hunt for that fatebringer or voc, but not now. I agree they need to bring it back for us, even if they make it cost a ton of motes of light or whatever, but I don't think they will. They are too worried about new players and new money.