Destiny was always this exact mix of technical tradeoffs, cost constraints, and technical marvels all coexisting at once. When people say they wish some perfect version would emerge that only had the good and not the bad I know I can simply ignore them.
Yea agree.
There were debates early on as to whether we would use a more open world approach to level design (kinda like fallout/oblivion), but the matchmaking system (for the most part) required us to build these contained areas (bubbles). So it pushed the level design into this compartmentalized layout.
Some of these debates caused massive fracturing in the team that were never recovered from.
I'm not even saying it was "the wrong choice" but it marked a point with two very different roadmaps forward as to what kind of game Destiny would become.
This was particularly painful when at E3 is was stated "See all that world over there, you can explore it all" and many of us cringed knowing it wasn't true.