: But it's still a top-tier fanfic and one of few fics I've ever bothered to
: finish. The attention to detail is top-notch (why are fans better at this
: than paid writers?) and the ending is particularly satisfying and
: something that should actually happen in the Haloverse one way or the
: other if they're to salvage anything out of the mess the story has become.

Are fans really better than paid writers?
Judging from the fanfiction I've read and people I've interacted with, I think that fans who pay attention to detail are as much of a minority as authors who pay attention to detail.

: Of course, from Escalation we now know Hood couldn't apparently care less
: about Osman ordering around the Infinity crew to do ONI's wetwork, which
: shows 343i's writing department isn't gonna be going in CoR's direction
: anytime soon.

That pissed the author off to no end. He's a lawyer, and feels that Palmer should have been hammered both for telling a lie that could easily have been contradicted by the black boxes in her armor, the Infinity, and whatever else Roland has got for recording and for following orders that came from outside her chain of command.