: Most of us say "Ghost" and "Banshee" like we would say
: "Stryker" or "F-16". Sure, there's probably other
: aircraft in the Covenant arsenal, more "Fighter Jets" and
: "Utility Helicopters". The difference between the Trilogy
: Banshees and the Reach Banshee is probably the difference between the F-16
: and the F/A-18. But that's not the problem.

It's more like the differences between the Northrop YF-17, the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18, and the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Different manufacturers, different flight characteristics, with a similar silhouette yet obvious distinctions.

: You guys are passionate about something, but are you Halo fans? I hate to
: pull that card. I loathe this trufan bullshit, but I can't imagine
: working on a Halo project and throwing out all the Bungie-era designs.

Probably should have listened to yourself before you ended a fairly decent critique with such an underhanded comment. I don't care for 343i's artistic interpretation, style, etc. in a lot of cases either. MJOLNIR is now indistinguishable from any other scifi power armor beyond adaptations of the old styles like Mark VI and such. It's unfortunate that they decided for Halo 4 to derive so many of their designs from Bungie's work on Halo: Reach. Many things with Halo 3 and especially with Reach later on I felt took advantage of the new hardware on these consoles to make them unnecessarily detailed often at the expense of maintaining an iconic sihoulette and sense of style.

These abrupt, unsightly, and even unwelcomed changes were nothing new when 343's stewardship of the franchise came around. Bungie changed things up from time to time at their leisure even when it didn't make sense. In the end it doesn't bother me that much because I simply accept it as their artistic interpretation and vision for that entity, be it a character, an enemy, a vehicle, or a set of armor. Does 343i need to incessantly explain that these are merely additional items and not replacements as we believed? I don't think so. We can make that assumption for ourselves and we have. It is a nice courtesy though and one they've delivered on quite often in many forms since their stewardship began with diversity of the various Kig-Yar races, Banshee variants, starships, etc. If I remember correctly the old plasma rifle was even in the last issue of Escalation much to my surprise.

343i developer's fandom for Halo may not represent your and indeed all of HBO's majority expectations for Halo. I'm sure Waypoint, r/Halo, Archive, and any other community has a consensus of what they visually expect from Halo as well. It's all different and I think it's all valid. 343 are the ones putting hours and hours behind their own vision of Halo and applying that vision to how they interpret these objects in the universe. You're entitled to your own opinion on those efforts just like everyone else is whether it's positive, negative, or apathetic. 343 is similarly capable of having opinions and a vision that don't match yours. Like it or hate it all you want but they certainly can never cater to everyone.

In any case it's pretty shitty of you to claim that 343's developers aren't fans of the series. Just like with ordinary fans like you and me, neither of us judges one another on our level of devotion to Halo based on lame and arbitrary scales. That shouldn't apply to 343 either. While I'm sure many people at the studio are just there for a job, which I can't deride them for at all, that still shouldn't matter. I don't know anyone who would seek employment at a studio which will only ever develop for one franchise who doesn't have the least bit of respect, admiration, and love for this franchise. Y'know, like most western shooter fans.