: Grinding hearkens back to the old terminal days?
If it was PID's level up system for weapons, sure. But Destiny's method of storytelling/backstory only harkens back to Marathon because it's stuff you read and can skim if need be, something that Halo 3 did miles better than Destiny, with the fan mod I did a Tour of Duty for here (Halo SPV3) having a terminal system identical to Marathon as opposed to Halo 3's rather odd implementation.
I say this because unlike Destiny Marathon & PID had their terminal & dialog systems in the game itself, not on a separate site most players either wouldn't be able to nor care to visit. I was on Bungie.net a couple of years before I came here (though I did read the main story page a lot) and I couldn't be bothered to read the Destiny grimoire most of the time as it wasn't in the game itself, so I'd often forget to when on my PC later. The times I did read it I don't remember any of the details. (This was before I got an Xbox One and Taken King so at that time I was playing the original Destiny on Xbox 360 with DinkleBot)