: Hell if I can ever get the ODST or Reach pre-order stuff ever again thanks to
: my account fucking up.

Chalk it up to a difference in opinion, but if we're talking about exclusives, you kinda dilute the word when you make them not actually exclusive. Consider Recon from H3, for example. The whole reason people clamored for it was because next-to-nobody had it. Then they did the vidmaster thing, which was a seemingly sensible approach to broadening it a bit, but in all actuality it really torqued people who had been granted Recon for great feats of Halo-ness. Finally, when it basically didn't matter anymore, 343i opens it up for everyone and Recon is meaningless.

Bungie did it right with the Legendary flames. Only ever exclusive to the Legendary edition, and it stayed that way. You might have seen those (myself included) rocking it as douchebags who ponied up way too much dough for a video game, but 1. I have the Legendary flames and you don't, neener neener, and 2. my Noble team statue still looks bad-ass. Neener. Neener.