While there's certainly a lot of Traviss's trademark moralizing in the Halsey-bashing, I don't think it was her idea in the first place. I mean, come on. She [i]doesn't[/i] research the franchise she writes for. The only way she's going to know about Halsey, what she did, and how to bash her is if 343i tells her.

And, if I recall correctly, Frankie basically admitted that they thought the Halsey-bashing parade would be a good source of controversy.

So, yeah. Like a lot of other things by 343i, it's "Good concept, lousy execution." Mendez is absolutely the WRONG person to call Halsey out on her crimes, as is Parangosky.

: Is it rather distasteful at times, lending nothing of
: consequence to the narrative? Absolutely. But her arguments towards Halsey
: remain steeped in previously established lore. 343 Industries is merely
: attempting to make people think about what the UNSC has done, and
: continues to do throughout the colonies.

If anything, I think that 343i has completely undermined Halsey's moral quandary by introducing the Spartan IVs. Not only are they a stupid and needless addition to the Haloverse, but somehow they're able to get the same level of augmentation without the augmentation being performed during puberty.
One of the biggest reasons for using children in the first place was that they were able to survive the augmentation process. The change removes the "Necessary" from "Necessary evil".