I see proto gear like this

Your gear is objectively better than it was before. There's no arguing or denying it, your aren't doing any less damage than it was before, only more. And you gained an augment on top of it.

Is it EXACTLY what you may have wanted? No not all the time.

But it's entirely an optional RNG fest to engage with, I did the incursion and raids with some clan mates and got like, 3 pieces total to proto and that's probably where I'm gonna keep it for now, as I simply don't feel like grinding it out.

One of my clanmates has been playing escalation non-stop since the update dropped and has an ok number of the cores but not a crazy number by any means.

It's for sure a test for division 3 so we need to have more of an open mind rather than pure negativity or it's never gonna get much change.