Occasionally they got PvP right and then they fucked it up by moving away from it. There was a couple of seasons of iron banner where the gear was locked behind gain coins from playing and bounties, and it made it a bit of a challenge to grind out for the 'best' efffectively curated gear. They then moved to engrams so you could drown in loads of shit roles!
Also Trials had a heyday for the more casual PvP player - when it was based in the Reef, and again bounty completion could get you gear, it was worth taking the losses to an extent. In fact now its back down in the Hanger it still has some of that but I think the RNG of engrams is always a bit of a joy killer.
I always sort of thought PvP always sort of lacked a purpose in the lore - it was a training ground apparently, except no matter how crap you were you could drop good gear via RNG and could do any of the PvE stuff. As a training ground it had zero purpose. We all grind the fuck out of CoD for zero purpose, but somehow grinding PvP for zero purpose never appealed too much to me. Best times in normal PvP were probably the exotic bounties that forced you to do PvP in D1 - gave it a purpose (an hunter who got thorn at last will remember the feeling of relief after completing the void kills at a time when the only void option for hunters was a Heavy or one raid weapon!
D1 and D2 were fantastic at times but as has been said before the cookie cutter Seasonal content just became meh ! Too grindy even for me, and thats what eventually made me drop away, and honestly cant even face thinking about going back!
But when it was good it was great - the FG Raid teams in particular. So many great memories, and laughs. The hours of banging heads against brick walls for that one final run when everyone at last got it right. One of the great things was they way you didnt actually have to be great at the game to finish the raids, learning a role and having a supportive team meant you'd get the completion eventually, not everyone had to be a superstar, was incredibly accessible.
Good times gang!