: Maybe I was the only one, but I really felt a huge disconnect from the main
: story almost instantly. As pretty as that first level was, and as nice as
: it was to be playing as the Chief again, I kept thinking "How did I
: get here? How did the Arbiter get here? What happened on the Forerunner
: ship? Shouldn't I be there first? Don't tell me this all happened in the
: blink of an eye- that's impossible.... Maybe the Forerunner ship could get
: here that fast but Not the Arbiter and Johnson"

Probably better for me because I didn't play Halo 3 until long after it came out, but I treated it as a puzzle. What could have slowed down the Dreadnought long enough for Johnson, Keyes, and the Arbiter to reach Earth?

Back then, I had incentive to poke around for those mysteries because I actually believed that the answers existed. Not so with 343i.

: (I wish more people would have done that with Halo 4)

I tried. Didn't help.

: So, to circle back, in order for me to complete the story arc, to fill in the
: gaps I needed to have that extended fiction. I had to go out of the game
: to complete the story.

: Isn't that the same mortal sin that 343 did with the terminals in Halo 4 that
: so many (myself included) lamented over?

No.
"Uprising" wasn't needed to understand the story of Halo 3. The story in the Terminals is ancillary to the main plot.

The Didact's motivation, why he's here, why we're back to fighting the Covenant... none of that is discernible from in-game content. And the real tragedy is that 343i has done this before. Remember how Frankie came out and had to explain a lot of factors and context behind Legends episodes?

Also: Crappy writing.

: H1-H2

: What about the disconnect between H1 and H2? That is a big one. If you didn't
: read First Strike: You last saw MC floating in a derelict Longsword, and
: when you see him again he's on a Space Station above Earth somehow.

At no point was it stated that they were 'stranded'. The Master Chief even says that "We're just getting started", a massive hint that there's more to come.

Therefore, the Chief standing on a space station over Earth doesn't implicitly contradict anything, unlike Arbiter and Co greeting the Chief back home. Johnson would be a better example.

: Granted, Bungie did a good job of explaining how and why his Armor is
: different in this transition, but not the how/why/when he got back to
: Earth. Want to fill in the gaps? Gotta go to the EU and read the book.

Oh, but here's the difference!

The ending of Halo 3 and the beginning of Halo 4 match up excellently. The Chief goes into his cryopod and tells Cortana to wake him when she needs him. The Forward Unto Dawn is seen drifting toward a giant Forerunner planet.

In Halo 4, Cortana wakes Chief and says that she needs him, the implication being that this is the first time he's been woken. We later see the Forerunner planet.

Only, the Forward Unto Dawn has become a space station that looks nothing like the original. And it should be patently obvious by the end of the level that the Chief's armor is completely different.
How did it change? How did the Forward Unto Dawn become Deep Space Seven? There are no answers to that but "Artistic License."

There was a 'jump' between Halo: CE and Halo 2, so we're supposed to understand that a story happened. It did, and it didn't impact the events of Halo 2, so we're all good.

There was no such jump between Halo 2's cliffhanger ending and Halo 3, but it was eventually explained to my satisfaction. Even then, it didn't affect my appreciation of the story.

But the change in the Chief's armor? The changes that were rubbed in my face every time the camera went to third person or a cutscene? The message I took home from those was "Don't bother paying attention to the details, because they're going to get changed the next time some artist gets bored."

: Aside from 343's poorly chosen and explained aesthetic changes (see Forward
: Unto Dawn, MC's Armor, Hogs and weapons on the Dawn) the transition
: between the way Halo 3 ended and Halo 4 began is pretty solid.

If by transition, you mean "Continuous transfer from one game to the next", yes.

: I dunno about you guys, but my average gamer friends that played Halo always
: asked me those questions that I posed to you above because they didn't
: read the books or anything, and I honestly hated telling them "oh,
: yeah, they explained that, go read First strike".

I dunno about that, but introducing my brother to Halo 4 rose a lot of pointed questions... from someone who had never played a Halo game before.

: Sure, we'll bitch till the cows come home about how if you really want to
: understand anything about the Didact leading into H4 you need to read the
: Forerunner saga by Greg Bear, and how not cool that is, or that you have
: to go out of the game for the terminals.

: But tell someone they need to read First Strike to understand how Master
: Chief got home between H1 and H2, or they need to read uprising to see how
: he made it back to Earth and try to explain how the 'Believe' ad campaign
: fits and they'll do it with a smile on their face.

: I don't see how that's fair, honestly.

I don't see how that's fair either.
External material is not needed to understand the main plot of Halo 2 or Halo 3. The manuals provided enough of a primer to get you going.

The same cannot be said for Halo 4.

: I wonder, if people are more forgiving of Bungie's inconsistencies and EU
: because the story was so kick ass that it was just easier to overlook them
: and then after enough time, forget them. Perhaps it was all easier to
: swallow because a lot of us were much younger then.

: I wonder if people are less forgiving of 343 committing similar actions
: because of the fondness for the story (and it's imperfections) above.

There's an illusion inherent to all storytelling, kept alive by our willing suspension of disbelief. The author draws upon that credulity to weave a story that, yes, may have contradictions, contrived coincidences, and even hinge upon events that happen offscreen.

I daresay that Bungie lost some of that willing suspension of disbelief by the time they released Halo: Reach, and it contradicted The Fall of Reach in a way that couldn't easily be reconciled.
Some people were willing to ignore those contradictions or work them together, but it was the last straw for other people.

Now, how much willing suspension of disbelief did 343i have to capitalize on? Truly, they inherited some cynicism from Bungie's run, but they proceeded to dig themselves into a hole like it was an Olympic sport. Frankie promised us that there would be a canonical reason for the changes in Chief's armor and that we would care about the Prometheans in Halo 4. 343i spent several bulletins talking about the great job they were going to do, and then they delivered Halo 4.

: I feel like 343's chapters into the EU are tighter, and more coherent on a
: lot of levels than what's come before,

I see that you are discounting the existence of Legends entirely.

: but they just don't interest or
: grip some people because while they might be more solid, they just don't
: have that kick ass feeling that's Bungie's did.

Probably true.
When Bungie or Nylund tried to make something awesome, it was usually awesome (Exception being Miranda's "To War" line...)

When 343i tries to make something awesome, it comes across as poorly written fanfiction.
"The UNSC Infinity is awesome because it is longer than any other ship in the UNSC! It also has shields and Forerunner engines and a whole battalion of Spartans and can ram Covenant capital ships in HALF!"

: Does any of that ^^ make sense to you? Like, the story is put together well
: enough, maybe even better than previous ones, it's just that you don't
: care to read/watch/participate in it?

: But maybe that's not the story you wanted to read, and that seems to be one
: story that 343 wants to explore more.

By tossing aside what came before, yes.