I do believe that most people who's opinion is worth an extended consideration hold that Armour Lock was far from fine in a competitive environment. Bungie followed quite an MLG-esque approach - strip it down, concentrate it - they had seen players do this on their own and to this day MLG and 343i still do the same thing (Team Throwdown).

: I disagree. The best of the best didn't just stop because they hit the number
: 50. Not even close.

There is nothing to disagree with: what I said was fact. Bungie published a distribution of high skill ranks as part of a presentation on their multiplayer systems a few years ago which showed this to be the case. In fact, at every milestone there was player bleedout.

With only one significant milestone left (who is going to give a blam about their Waypoint-only badge turning silver or gold?) there will be more uniform loss across the ranks as people stop caring, but I believe there will be noticeable drop-out at 50 as people will want to preserve that rank. If that rank atrophies on its own, people will only stop caring all the sooner.