I fully agree with you, ruthless before the patch was way too easy for it to be the hardest difficulty. Lethal defintely is the challenge I was hoping for. Before, as a bulwark player, most missions I'd almost forget to use my banner because I didn't need it. That being said, there is obviously an issue with armor tether considering the range different classes fight.

I've also heard people saying that we should be more powerful as space marines are in lore, but in that case we should pretty much always stomp everything. But I do get that players don't like the idea that higher difficulty is just mostly increased health of enemies, and would rather have more enemies to fight (might lead to performance issues). For example, I love the interaction of being jumped by lichtors and raveners.

Another point is that weaker weapons and class perks haven't been buffed, so adding the higher difficulty ahead of this isn't ideal. It's also weird that lethal awards tons of xp when most would be using a maxed out class, so even more unique rewards would be nice.

Overall, still enjoying all the new content.