It's true enough. Like any other set of rules that describes how humans interact, it breaks down the closer you look.

: A better weapon in the intended service rifle role, perhaps.

Actually, that's what I said. The M14 is a great designated marksman's rifle because it was designed for that precise role; it just turns out that the role it was designed for isn't the role that most soldiers find themselves fighting in.

: Sometimes, even if the technology is immature and the role its intended for
: makes it inferior to an older, proven design, progress needs to be made.

You are using a very odd definition of 'progress' that I can't find in the dictionary.

: The F/A-18F Super Hornet replaced the F-14D Tomcat. In the aerial combat
: role it's seen as inferior, but at the time of its adoption, the
: likelihood of dogfighting was almost non-existent. Instead, it strives as
: a strike fighter where the Tomcat only barely made its mark.

*shrugs*

I really don't know much about aircraft, so I'm probably going to sound like an idiot. But the demise of the F-14D sounds like a development driven by the changing nature of war. America won't (probably) face a foe with a modern air force, so we don't need a cutting-edge fighter to gain air superiority. The Super Hornet is good enough in that diminished role, while excelling in the sort of fight America gets itself into time and time again.

There's a lot of weapons that have been mothballed altogether because of changing technology. Nobody fields anti-tank guns anymore because rocket launchers and man-portable missiles are cheaper and harder for fighter jets to take out.

: I won't even mention the M9 compared to the M1911. :P

We do not speak of that sacrilege. Not in this house.

: Quite frankly, none of us know the capability, function, or role of this new
: rocket launcher. Appearance aside, it might be more effective than its
: predecessor, comparatively defective, or maybe totally equal.

Better in every way. Each of those rockets packs a variable-yield nuclear warhead, the targeting system has a mini-Smart AI to aim the launcher for you, and the body of the weapon is forged from mithril and quenched in the tears of mall ninjas.

Get the point? If 343i can pull a "Better than the original" Spartan program out of their ass, they can wave their hands and say that this new rocket launcher corrects a trillion flaws that the old one had. That's not the point. Well, that is the point. The point isn't "Does this rocket launcher operate better than the last one?" The point is that we're losing an iconic Halo design for something clearly inspired by a modern weapon.

And yes, contrary to what you said elsewhere, the rocket launcher is an iconic Halo weapon. There's been two-barrel rocket launchers in real life, barely a handful of them. Neither of those rotate and index the barrels in between firing. I really don't know of a fictional weapon that looks anything like it, aside from its predecessor in Marathon.

Maybe this whole topic is a red herring. I dunno. I'm tired and drunk and... can you use 'insomniac' as an adjective? How sober can I be if I'm pondering the edge cases of the English language?

: In any case, however, it's a new design and that's more money and
: more jobs for defense contractors.

My guess is that the greedy defense contractors are to blame for the 314 billion MJOLNIR variants. And the new-and-totally-more-awesome-than-the-Sabre space fighter. Throwing this new rocket launcher on top of the pile is a little much.