I am okay with a change to the shader system, but clearly a lot of people aren't. I wouldn't complain either way, although I would always opt for the more simple and fun option. There needs to be something that you get back when you would lose a shader when applying another one. I think Shader Dust or Shader Scraps.. Something that we could collect and amass so that eventually we would be able to learn to make the Shader or buy it back. That way we do have to farm for them a bit if we like specific shaders a lot, but we also have a means of making them permanent to bring the farm to an end. You don't want to be endlessly farming for the same shader 3 expansions in because you got new armor to put it on. You don't want to finally have that shader equipped to all your gear just to farm for it again because new gear was released... Eventually you would say screw it and not bother. At least most people would.
There needs to be middle ground. You can't take away something like unlimited use shaders and replace them with single use shaders, and especially not if you're going to make them obtainable through microtransactions. That is just not cool, and Bungie, you should know by now that your community will find any hole in your games to complain about and this is a big one. There needs to be something in the middle to say, "We know you won't like the changes, we get it. So we're going to let you do this" or "give you a way to do this to make up for it"... u feel?
I'd be fine with it if they let us use glimmer to buy any shaders we get from rng. Right now we get 3 shaders, what good is that when I have 5 items plus a ship that I want to use the same shader on, but I'm halfway there and have to farm for 3 more.
Have them be consumables is fine, just let us have a way to rebuy them if we have already found it.