Destiny Notes

I kinda agree and disagree with a lot of these statements, but I feel like you might be missing out on how Destiny 2 is vastly structured differently then Destiny 1. Another thing you have to consider, is you're comparing 4 years of revisions, updates, and changes (all of which also came with good and bad things) to a game that is still in it's Vanilla state.

1. Vault - I completely agree that sorting needs to change with the vault. I've never seen the vault this incredibly disorganized. We either need the ability to permentanly sort things using the feature already given to us (a change that should be extened to inventory as well should they go this route) or have multiple sections of the vault that are pre-sorted in a way that actually makes sense (like Destiny 1 in some regards.) I will be flabergasted if this isn't addressed in the next few major updates. In short though, this really needs to change.
That being said, I RARELY use my vault. Even in Destiny 1 I barely used it at all. DIM and other 3rd party programs do things you could never do in game and can be done without having to waste a trip to the tower. Unless Bungie plans on doing something absolutely insane to change how we vault away our gear I don't see DIM being changed as the best way to manage your gear. Whether you like it or not.

2. Sparrows / Ships - This is something I feel is a bit more opinion based so I'll go about this a bit differently.
My personal opinion: I really don't care about collecting sparrows / ships. I now have one I like for each character and I pretty much now view new ones as Silver Dust packages I can use to buy coins / shaders and other stuff I actually want. I literally have no problem with the current system.
My arugement for this is basically "just don't delete them". There is honestly nothing keeping you from deleting any ships or sparrows and AFAIK there aren't even enough sparrows / ships currently to fill all 30 sparrow and ship slots that you have on your characters. I believe you can even vault the ones if you do fill up. I personally see zero reason to need a vendor to redistibute stuff that we deleted willingly.
And don't tell me you don't have space. I've barely managed to fill my vault at all.

3. Mods - First thing I'll say. It's a new system, they WILL tweek it to be better. Inventory management for mods conflicts with collecting them in the first place. It feels like they wanted to keep you from just having an absolute stockpile of legendaries and did that by capping your inventory space. We'll see how they change that.
As far as the mods them self? I think it's utter brilliant. The customization, which I'll go indepth into later, allows you get builds you want for you character in a lot more straight forward manner than before.
EXAMPLE:
Destiny 1 - Got gloves you wanted. Good roll? Done. Bad roll? Try again. (Literally my life with the Theosyion Vibrissae which drop from the Echo Chamber. Did not get a good roll until TWO years later, 1 month before Destiny 2 came out.)
Destiny 2- Got gloves you wanted. ALWAYS SAME ROLL. Done. Your next step is to aquire the mod you want for your build. Install. Done.
So what does this all mean? You spend LESS time mindless grind rolls for insanely long times and spend MORE time trying out builds for your characters to find something you like.
As far as just having mods be universal? I think this is a way to keep people from making mods that are grossly built in one direction and becoming broken. Is it the right way to go about it? Honestly, it's up for debate. I like it, but others may not. One thing we can agree on, is it does make a mess in your inventory.
The only solution at the moment to clean up your inventory is to delete blue mods you don't want and convert blues you do into legendarys. Not the best solution, but it's what we got until bungie figures out how to streamline this new system.

4. Strikes - I like doing strikes because they are fun, but there is more to my arugement then that. In destiny 1, strikes were literally all we did. Seriously. How often did you boot up patrols in the last year of Destiny 1? How about Challenge of Elders? Story Missions? My point is that strikes were the best way to go about it. Period.
How destiny 2 works is far better in my opinion and I'll explain why.
Strikes - Daily challenges for the playlist make you do a FEW strikes each day instead of all day long. You can do them more if you are aiming to get loot from Zavalla as he provides gear that can only be recieved that way. I do still think this is lacking in strike specific loot, but we can't select strikes individually either (I dislike this change as well) so it would have been odd to have that.
Patrols - Weekly Flashpoint, challenges, missions, world specific loot, and public events (public events, which as you correctly pointed out, is the best way to get exotic drops as far as we know )
Crucible - More challenges, specific loot.
So wtf point am I trying to make? Strikes are no longer the primary focus of PvE content in the game anymore. If literally your only goal in life is to get exotics, then yes, there is no point in doing strikes. However, if your sole purpose in the game is to get exotics you are ignoring features of the game because you do not care about them. That is your desicion / opinion / whatever.

5. Exotics - Before I even get into this one, reminder that Bungies intent for exotics is to enhance a particular build or playstyle. They did not want people to feel like they have to make an entire build AROUND an exotic. In D1 if you had the exotic warlock gloves "Nothing Manacles" you spent your entire build making yourself have more grenades and picking specific perks that went with those gloves. In D2 this style has changed entirely.
Exotics HAVE changed but it's to complement the new way you customize your build. That being said the points you make feel entirely baseless. Why are you only bringing up hunter gear? Have you gotten all the gear and feel as though you can judge your options as a whole? Your perspective makes it sound you like you only have 2 exotics and only play 1 out of the 9 subclasses. Like wth man. I mean if you really don't like any of the exotics that's fine. I have nothing against that. But 99% of the exotics worthless? What?

Let's literally just look at hunter armor pieces (every single one, idc if you have them or not) and why they are good / how they can be customized into your build / basically how their existence is validated for being in the game.

Celestial Nighthawk - The only real requirement here is that you select the bottom tree of the gunslinger build (doing crit damage seems like a no brainer). Everything else from Resiliance, Recovery, and Agility can be tailored to how you like. Mods on armor can be spec'd for kinetic and special reload or handling if you want to give yourself a better PvE presence against adds OR if you want to get your nighthawk more often you can spec for faster ability cooldown. And this is just an example. you could ignore ability cooldowns but maybe focus on melee and grenade cooldowns to, once again, focus on add control since your super is focus entirely on boss DPS. You can select either dodge to fit your playstyle, fast reload can help with both add control or boss DPS with other guns depend how you want to use it.
EXAMPLE:
Could spec with the quick reloading dodge, a power weapon focus on DPS (we'll say mercilis), Power handling / reload so you spend less time not shooting the boss. This would be gear for straight up DPS.
OR
Could spec with melee recharge dodge to more throwing knives, and grenade recharge / kinetic or energy reload for add control.

Foetracer - "Visually marks targeted enemies. Deals more damage to low health marked enemies." This is a new one I find really interesting actually, and it does not require a specific subclass. I could see this be useful in a number of ways, could make a shadowshot build that allows for even better add control. Could use with gunslinger to combo with melees / throwing knives / etc. Could use with Arcstrider to finish off enemies weakend by arcbolt grenades.

Knucklehead Radar - You mentionefd this was a "real" exotic. Don't think I need to prove my point here then.

Mechanner's Tricksleeves - It's the sidearm one. And if you don't like sidearms? fine, but I actually really want these. I want to attempt to make a build that works with double side arms for when I'm goofing around in patrol. But don't call them useless just because you don't fucking like them. That's your opinion.

Young Ahamkara's Spine - Another tripmine grenade usless? Probably in PvE, but in PvP having a 2nd one could be extremely usefull in gametypes like countdown where lane control is absolutely paramount. Again, I don't give a damn if you don't play crucible. That's your choice, that doesn't mean it's useless.

The Dragons' Shadow - "Grants increased movement and weapon handling speed for a short time after dodging." How does this not sound good to you? Seriously? Coupled with the reloading dodge this keeps you in the fight much longer and spending far less time behind a wall reloading. You don't even need to use that dodge. If you like having more melee use the other one. You can spec your armor with mods that grant ability cool downs so you can dodge more often and be freaking dodge happy. This seems like the most limiting armor piece so far and it's honestly not even that limiting.

Lucky Raspberry - This can allow you to work on a build that is focused on grenade cooldowns. Probably the most lackluster of the exotics as far as what you can do with it, but I mean fuck, how often have john and I mentioned how godly pulse grenades are? Don't like arcstrider? Not my problem.

Raiden Flux - Basically mask of the thridman. Don't want to use pulse grenades and instead want a better mobbing option as a hunter? Here you go. Can be pair with ability cooldowns for maximum fuck you to any adds that get in the way of your arcstaff. Still don't like arstrider? Still not my problem.

Lucky Pants - Yet ANOTHER exotic that doesn't require a subclass. (Spoilers only 5 out of the 11 armor pieces require a specific subclass. ) Anywho, these are cool for handcannon afficiandos, which we appear to have a lot of. Like tricksleeves these can be used in a variety of builds and don't require a sole focus on one piece of your whole set up.

STOMP-EE5 - You mentioned liking these so I don't feel the need to jusitify it, but I will anyway, because it is apart of my current build.
  My build with these:
  Rat pack / Autorifle / Quickfang
  Nightstalker - w/ Marksman Dodge / Lower Tree / Vortex Grenade / Triple Jump
So what is this? Basically a ninja. Rat pack and vanishing smoke allow for a fare amount of invisiblity, my armor is spec'd for kinetic mods allowing my rat pack to reload faster and ready faster, this allows for some fast swapping nonsense with the sword for lots of invisibilty and ninja strikes. Quickfang is set up to have max ammo so I can use it more often. I almost never run out with this build when I use it on patrols. The boots allow for faster movement all around to compensate for the short invis period. Also, running with a sword super fast is pretty cool. closing distances is really important since this build is focus around close range weaponry. This is why the STOMP-EE5 makes this build so much cooler instead of becoming the focus of the build itself.

Orpheus Rig - I personally don't have these but they do sound awesome. Basically what I'm seeing is you like these because you like shadowshot. You like that one specific build. Then what do you want. Things that only work with the build YOU want? That seems mighty selfish and small minded.

I think that's enough on exotics.

6. Only thing I agree with is not having a north arrow on the compass. I honestly think the less time you spend in your map the better. Just go out and explore. If you go from way point to way point you're literally missing the point of having this huge patrol area to explore. Map and navigation isn't done perfectly, that's for sure but I don't think it is bad as you think it is.