: I know I'm in the minority
: and I know others haven't stared as closely at the originals' details for
: a decade like me, so I know I won't be convincing anyone. Most people
: probably don't even notice the little things that drive me crazy.

This is the meat of it, I think. If I look closely at things in CEA, I can see that you're right. Certain characters and vehicles ARE mismatched. And you're especially right about the Forerunner architecture - there is a LOT of complexity in things that used to be flat stone. And though I haven't gone back and checked yet, I suspect uberfoop's right about the colors.

But at the same time, things don't look glaringly different to the average person who isn't artistically trained or especially obsessed with cataloguing things. I've been playing Halo for well over 1/3rd of my life now, and Halo: CE feels more familiar to me than my own room, but when I loaded up CEA I did not have any thoughts that things looked "wrong." Each area I entered felt like the same playspace I knew. I never got lost or felt like I wasn't in the same levels I remembered.

Also of note: collision geometry not matching the visuals sucks, and I will without reservation agree with others who've said that. It definitely needs to be better if there is a Halo 2 remake. I have to say, though, it only impeded my gameplay once, for about two seconds.