Interesting discussion.
Wayward gives the perfect response:
In other multi-player games you have a large(er) base of people constantly around you. Cliques are diluted a tad when it comes to “large” group PvE content.
- EQ1 had 24-72 man raids. Group Size was 6(?).
- WoW had 10-40 man raids. Group size was 5.
- Various other games floated from 8-40 man raids. Group sizes between 4-6.
For Destiny:
- 6 man raids. Group Size 3.
The unfortunate reality is that as you add more people to the melting pot (the community) people tend to flock together with friends and friends of friends. Within a community this can cause issues with emotions, you saw it briefly while setting up a couple raid teams. Expanding upon that concept, you and your buddies want to run harder and harder content and the community pressure of being inclusive is adding to the stress.
In order to attain greater results you have to become exclusive within your team.
That being said, as far as I was aware, the goal of the community was to get away from small cliques. So, in this sense I understand his decision at face value.