I think a big problem that will affect a range of people (Ghaleon included) is that the Prison of Elders bosses aren't all equally difficult. Valus Trau'ug I can see being a huge clusterfuck of a fight at 34 (it already was at 32). Qodron, as many have said here, is a very difficult fight and a huuuge spike from what we had last week. Personally, I really love the fight, and I think it was a smart implementation of mechanics into a fight that I wish they did more often. Lastly, as previously mentioned, Urrox was pretty damn easy for a first week's taste at 34. I don't think many of us had a problem at all with him, even at 33. On top of all this, we've still got 2 more bosses we haven't seen (datamined-- though I would love to see more). This fluctuation in difficulty is really throwing people for a loop in these initial weeks. Last week it was, with some effort, very doable to finish PoE 34 as a group of 33s. It gave us an expectation that it was going to be like this and this week proves it is very much not the case. People who are still 33s could very well have a very hard time finishing the PoE 34's with reasonable time that several of us have done multiple times last week to get a character to 34. I wouldn't say it's a simple problem, but it is a notable one.
Secondly, I wish the progression was slower. This isn't a common or likable opinion, especially here I think, but they're handing out etheric light in way too many places way too fast. I think it's a byproduct of having multiple characters and just sharing loot between the characters but that really throws progression balancing in a really crazy loop. From what Ghaleon has said, I take it he's not running everything three times a week to get three times the loot so like many of us are to boost a single character ahead. But many of us are doing just that and many of us have accelerated our characters because we could get one to 34 on day one and quickly get groups to do 35 and it snowballed into this week (including Trials that handed them out in spades to many of us). Now some of us, me included, have all 34s with a bucket of Etheric Light with which we have no idea what to do. I really don't like that. We shouldn't be at this point in less than 2 weeks.
This mostly boils down to me expecting Monthly-Sub style MMO content in an MMO-like game that doesn't have a subscription. I want a slow burn progression that makes me work for it. I want a raid that takes (up to) weeks of practice and headbanging to finish completely. I want to spend a month hitting max level with the new expansion. I don't want to exhaust all the content there is in 2 weeks. This is a $15 DLC addon to a $60 game, though, and that's where we're at. The problem is they talk as if it is a slow burn and as if we have a quality-of-life system that they need to balance. There's hardly any quality-of-life to worry about when we will exhaust all there is in 2 weeks and then bail after 3 or 4. This thread will slow down to a crawl again like it did after TDB because of just that, though. Again, it comes back to us approaching the game as if it was a subscription-style MMO when it is just a $15 addon. I would prefer the former in this case, clearly, but it isn't and it bothers me. I want it to be but it isn't and I treat it like it is but it doesn't really play by those rules.
I really do hope they have a plan to trickle in more content until Destiny 2/Comet/The Taken King/whateverthehellitis because they have the systems in place now to do so. Prison of Elders is a great modular way to add in small bits of new content. Make a new boss fight over a few weeks and throw it in the game. Spread out Trials cause holy shit is it overload with the amount of progression/loot you can get from it if you can get 9-0s. Make Etheric Light untradable between characters (this isn't a solution at this point, the damage is done, but I want the equivalent of this in the future).
My least favorite part of Destiny is racing to the max level and leveling up weapons. I love to just have things done so I can play the game and mess around with different builds. Secondly, Bungie nailed the rewards for trials; if it wasn't for the awesome loot I would not have even bothered playing. To go alongside with the awesome chest, Mercury is a beautiful environment of its own. I'd say the best in the game.
Bungie needs to do something like that for PVE.
Overall, I'd like to say that you are vastly overestimating the general public. DO NOT look at popular online communities as a barometer of how Destiny is played. We are a very core group.