: I've spent a bit of time in ODST and CE in the past 24 hours and I definitely
: missed the ability to sprint as well as a number of other features and
: even the general feel of the game.

: Whilst I have no particular urge to return to the H4 campaign any time soon,
: the taster has also reminded me I don't really want to be returning to
: those older games either.
: Unless you're still genuinely happy to clock in loads of hours in the earlier
: games, right now, it's hard to say how going back to the older approach
: will be better or hold anyones attention for any longer.

It gets easier after clocking "loads of hours." CE and ODST are going to feel like crap if you've been playing lots of games with sprint and you just sort of briefly dip into the older games occasionally. Even I, crazy CE person who usually has that game loaded in an original Xbox connected to an SD CRT, need to reacclimate to Halo 1 if I've been playing lots of Reach and/or 4.

Actually, going back to 4 from CE is the same way. 4 is somewhat more accessible, but there's still a period where I need to re-calibrate my mental x-button timing. It always feels super clumsy and inelegant until I do.

...This is why I'm always suspicious of people claiming that things like sprint or vehicle boarding (or even reload and jump buttons, if I want to bring my introduction to Marathon a couple years ago into this) are so necessary to game flow. In my experience, removing those things only feels "awkward" until you get back into the flow of the simpler title.
If said simpler title ever flowed well for a gaming population, it probably has a flow that is still entirely possible to enter. It's just that muscle memory is a jerk.