I've talked about the game for over a year and none of you are hitting me up...
@757's is pretty spot on. The current season's soft power cap is 1250 and the hard cap is 1260. Datto and Aztecross put out good guides on leveling strategies, plus I'm sure Reddit has some. For me, I run the weekly activities for gear and bounties, bounties, bounties. Enhancement cores are your bestie since you need those to purchase the upgrade modules from Banshee.
If you have a say 1230 helm, you don't need to equip it to get 1230+ drops. You can have it in your inventory or even the vault and you'll still get drops at or above that level. I think it displays in game, but you will receive powerful or pinnacle (whatever they call it) gear from weekly activities. I don't really run raids or dungeons, so I leveled up with strikes, lost sectors, and even gambit (shut up, I like gambit). Lost sectors are also a fast way of doing Banshee and/ or destination bounties. Lake of Shadows on the EDZ is probably the fastest strike in the game. I think the WR is around 2:30 and even my horrible-playing self has run it in around 5 minutes.
Look up Datto and Aztecross' guides though. Hang on to pieces even if you won't use them (blue weapons and armor) because they count towards leveling up. If you see me online and want to run Nightfalls at higher levels for better loot, mats, and a chance at exotics, let me know. If y'all want to schedule something, set i up and I'll wake up early to match evenings in the US.
The current season ends Feb. 9 at the weekly reset. All of your new drops after that date will start at 1250 or whatever that season's floor is set to. Umbral engrams with a chance to target loot are coming back. ALL of your Crucible tokens are deprecating at the end of this season, so turn them in by the 9th or lose them forever. Shatterdive hunters are still nasty, especially in PvE. The Titan stasis super lasts for about 2 1/2 days but will take a nerf at some point.