Confirmed: Button combos retained in Halo 2. :(
Well, looks like I'll be keeping to customs for the most part when I play H2. I don't much care for dying instantly up close. When that crap first started in MM back in the day, I had no idea what the hell going on. It was like I was getting insta-killed by melee attacks. Of course, I didn't know what it was for some time because people were exploiting something that wasn't supposed to be in the damn game to begin with. When I finally found out what it was, I left cheating feedback just as I did whenever I saw someone superbounce or using mods or manipulating the network.
Halo 2 had some great map design, but other than that it was fundamentally broken. Thus, I'll likely be sticking to custom games where I can operate with my own in-house honor rules.