: "You are the child of my makers, inheritors of all they left behind.
: You ARE Forerunner! but this ring... is mine!"

: Yep. Obviously crazy.

Allow me to quote my favorite words from all of Halo fiction:

< FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED >

< LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET >

< THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION >

< THIS IS RECLAIMER >

< AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS >

< I WILL REJECT MY BIAS AND MAKE AMENDS >

< MY MAKERS ARE MY MASTERS >

< I WILL BRING THEM SAFELY TO THE ARK >

: If not for the terminal mentioning humans as separate from Forerunners, there
: would be no real excuse for them not to be.

The impression we get from David Candland and Joseph Statten's works is that Humans are directly descended from the Forerunner. The impression we get from the Halo 3 Terminals is that Humans are related to the Forerunner, as Forerunner were uplifted from base Humanity millions of years ago and only just found their ancestral home in the closing hours of the war with the Flood.

Both are drastically different from the "Humans are unrelated to Forerunner, and had a civilization to rival the Forerunners and were totally the toughest enemy the Forerunner ever had to fight" we get from 343i.

: Instead, we got this:

With the Forerunner's technology and custom of mutating themselves to fit a career or a role in society, they don't have to look like humans. That said, if I were in charge of Halo 4's art, "Dollar-store Dracula" isn't the design I'd go with.