: I'm starting to think that you can't take a lot of these armor stylings, and
: especially their descriptions, at face value. They just don't seem
: plausible even for post-war humanity screwing around with Forerunner
: technologies. Nowadays it seems like the canon behind these armor sets and
: stuff are inspired more by Destiny's wildly extravagance than the grounded
: details we got with Halo 3 and Reach.

I agree-- and I think that's fine, if you can back it up, which a fantasy game can (because that's effectively what Destiny is, all the weird races and supernatural powers are from space instead of Earth). Halo can't back it up IMHO, although I think 343i might be looking to change that what with all the hard light and the composed beings and the Precursors the simplified Mantle and the crazy people and the strong beefy human forces and the glowing skulls (are those still in Halo 5? there's a glowing something that's vaguely head-shaped, are they trying to hide it?) and the genetic memory (ugh).