Ubisoft says the upcoming 1.2 update to The Division will make some important changes to the game, including the addition of a new Dark Zone Bracket and more “generous” loot drops, in terms of both quality and quantity.
Looting is meant to be the primary source of equipment in the game, but right now there's an inordinate focus on crafting, because quality loot drops are so rare, especially in the Dark Zone. After the update, there will be fewer gear mod drops, and more and better weapon drops; Hard Mode, Challenge Missions, Incursions, and all Dark Zone Brackets will all drop better loot as well, giving players more incentive to spend time on them.
More immediately, measures to identify chat spammers have been put into place, “so there should be an improvement soon.” An irritating bug that was causing Daily Missions to go missing was actually fixed today in a server-side patch, and Ubisoft said that all players who were affected by the “Backpack or Missing Character issue” have now been compensated.
Ubisoft talked about the changes coming in the update in its weekly State of the Game stream on Twitch, but if you'd rather get right to the point, The Division subreddit has a good summary of the important bits. A launch date for the 1.2 update hasn't been announced, but Ubisoft said more information about what it will contain (and, presumably, when it will arrive) will be revealed “in the next weeks.”