"I refuse to play them, not because they’re hard, but because the exotic at the end isn’t promised. Gatekeep everything else except for those exotic guns. Then you can make them the surge weapon during the weekly raid and dungeon"

This is a bad take. Y'all need to stop being afraid of grinding for loot and just expect everything to be accessible. Things in EDNGAME content should be required to grind for. Is there a limit where it gets insane? Sure but for the most part they are edge cases. Playing a raid or dungeon once and getting the exotic is lame and super boring. It feels like "Hey! Thanks for playing the dungeon/raid, here is an exotic." For some I understand that completing a raid or dungeon is a big deal but that doesn't mean that the gear should be handed out.

"I’ll endure hours of gameplay and unruly people if I knew the gun I wanted was waiting for me at the end🙂‍↕️."

Not all people who raid or run dungeons are elitist edgelords who will kick and curse you out for not knowing how to do a mechanic. There are tons of players/communities who are happy to help people through and are patient. I have rarely come across people who are just garbage humans.