You know those weapon racks in the forge maps (not counting the first 2 when you start they seem to work) they always seem to give me low level worthless weapons I have never gotten anything that I would trade out for my starting stuff however the first 2 when you start out seem to have good chance of giving high level stuff. I'm guessing this not how it's supposed to be.

You want the pink weapon things. They give the epic tier weapons.

When you say "forge maps" do you mean the Crucible? If so, then the weapon racks only give you what they are set to, which is usually very similar to what you start with.

yes the crucible sorry for some reason I want to call them forge,
that's the thing though I have one of the high weapon loadouts and it seems to only be giving me weapons form the first loadout.

If its the very first area, the one that looks to be a volcanic cavern, it might be due to that area not actually being a part of the "design" of the crucible. All the other areas are set to whatever loadout was picked, where the very first area is seperate from the loadout. Thats the only reason I can think of.