I think Kor's longer post above pretty much sums up my experiences as well, so no point in re-iterating too much.
I don't think boosting dragon's health to 6K is the way to go, although if you play around with Blighted health scales, this isn't too hard to achieve
(and buffs of course).
Not trying to derail the convo and I do agree to some extent that GR did need adjustment, but I don't think significantly decreasing it's damage (by way of significantly increasing it's recycle/cooldown) was the best way to go. I accept there are still changes in the works and much discussion, but something I've noticed from playing Destiny is that Devs seem to have a tendency to make large 'nerfs' rather than gentle ones but only make very small increases/buffs. If you wanted to make the dragon less of a one-button kill (commendable intent), I don't think linking abilities was EVER going to help achieve that either (though of course I do also note the linking of breath attacks was reversed, thank heavens!).
Anyway, back to the OP, the comparison of Dragons to Peds is always a messy one. I played a Dryad for some 6 years before I really go stuck into a dragon, and boy did I LOVE IT! The world we play in (or live in depending on how much time you spend in Istaria
), is one shared by two main groups, the Naka and the Dragons; the experiences of each I found are VERY different. It's like two completely different games, set in the one world; or at least it was for me, playing as a support (heavily multiclassed druid) Dryad, compared to the rawr power (hehe) of the flying Dragon!
To put it simply, there is no possible way to balance the two. If you want multiclassing, peds is the only way to go, if you want a hybrid-warrior flyer, Dragons is the only choice. I would support some very simple schools for dragons to help specialise, but the community is quite divided given the Devs have said it's almost impossible to setup without whipping out the current dragon school (for which many of us have invested countless hours, weeks, months or years into).