Which is why I went on to explain why my point was valid. Try to keep up.

: Let's take a look at Captain Del Rio...
:The writers had pigeonholed him into the
: role of the incompetent officer who just gets in the way, and nothing was
: going to change that.

So...that is kind of exactly what makes him a good character. You can understand his motives. He may not have made the best decision to go in without recon, but he explains exactly why he is doing it. He serves to worry the player because the danger is not only the Didact, there is also danger from superiors.

: And then the Didact. Hoo boy.
: He had a lot of character, right? I mean, how can he look like a vampire and
: not be EVIL? . . .
: He's just like Shinzon: completely
: ineffectual, no motive, no character.
You do know his motivations right? He thinks the humans are barbarians for attacking the Forerunners and clings so desperately to the Mantle that he believes he needs to eraticate humans for the sake of the universe. You have to pay attention to the story in order to know if it is good or not . . .
I have already discussed how 343 could have done a better job about informing the player about this in my "Story Telling and The End of Halo 4" thread

: All of Halo 4's writing successes
I don't care who you want to "attribute it" to. Cry about 343 all day long for all I care. You just said yourself that there is "writing success". Therefore it is good.
Just because that success is possible because of the YEARS of work done by others doesn't mean the game is bad, it just means that these particular new writers didn't add a lot of good characters.

: The Didact plotline, which was purely 343i's creation, was poorly plotted,
: poorly paced, poorly presented.
Go play Halo 3 again. Check out the terminals. Then talk to Greg Bear and his very successful books.

: Halo 4 comes along, and the truce with the Elites was completely dismissed
: with "A lot can happen in four years."

Oh all of humanity is at war with the Elites again? Nope, only the ones we faught at Reqium. And it makes perfect sense; if America had a truce with England, then we met our god in the flesh and he told us we had to kill England, we would break that truce in a heart beat.
And remember this is the "Storm Faction" or whatever dumb name they gave them. Sounds like they aren't with the rest of the Elites anyway.

: Spartans because humanity has always been top dog in 343i's
: book.

Yeah man, top dog who gets destroyed and man-handled by the tiny pup the "Forerunners".
You really need to know the story better before you talk about how bad it is.

: Oh, and about weapon redundancy... it doesn't help the game. At all.
: Saying that the weapons need to be identical for balance is laughable.

Agreed. Is your reading comprehension so poor that you think I said that?

: A battle rifle, a DMR, a Covenant DMR, and a Forerunner BR/DMR gets boring,
: fast.

When they all have specific roles and purposes, they aren't boring. If they bore you then maybe that is your problem. Every one of those is useful in their own right (except for maybe the AR types, I don't use them enough to know)