Time moves on...

If you want Joe to fix things then I assume that you are talking about story problems but where would he start? Does he throw away all the 343 stuff? Where do things go after Halo 3?

It was nice that the Chief went to sleep like King Arthur. Would you like some halo without the Chief for a while? I liked ODST and didn't miss the Chief. I'm not saying that I dislike the character it's just a little disappointing that he is put away only to come back in the very next game. There must be other good smaller-scale stories to tell in the haloverse.

What would it have been like to be a human in the post Halo 3 universe if the human race hadn't somehow, magically, rebounded and became oober in a few short years.

What was Bungie's number? 200 million people left alive on Earth? With only that plus some scattered colonies: we would NEED Sangheli allies. We would be small fry, not on the frontline of Elite/Brute/Prophets conflict.

There could be human and elite ships protecting the Ark portal and allied visits to Forerunner sites with a small number of engineers plus reclaimers.

What happens to the prophets? Who would give them shelter? What do they have to offer the brutes now that their religion is seen to be a lie? I don't think that brutes respect weakness. :-)