Good read.
I don't agree with everything—the problems with difficulty tuning started with Halo 2, for example—but I do agree that the way 343i handles storytelling just isn't as good as what Bungie did when Halo was their baby. Halo 1, 2, & ODST were great, and even with the first four levels of Halo 3 being filler and with Reach having dull protagonists (and a major retcon) those games still managed to have a more focused narrative and didn't involve a bunch of plot contrivances or villains with ill-defined motives and didn't require reading the novels to truly understand what exactly was going on.