I disagree with you. I LOVE the Raid. It is by far the best part of the game, and the fact its the only way to level to 30, makes it a necessity. I would hope that as new DLC arrives, we get new Raid's, and with each Raid, more levels are made attainable. If every Raid is done at level 30, -blam!- that. As to the factions thing... Yeah, thats a point. Besides some decent Legendary weapons, faction gear is absolutely pointless. The colour scheme doesnt matter because you are going to equip a Shader anyways, the gear is exactly as good as Vanguard and Crucible gear, and the effort needed to obtain faction stuff is stupid. More than that, there is no point in trying to rank a faction past 3, because the rewards are abysmal at best.