My hill to die on: 343's bungling of the MCC was one of the biggest daggers to Microsoft trying to catch up to Sony. Halo has never been the same since.
Its made a very large improvement since launch, considering it now mostly works correctly. Its still bot perfect, but in all honesty it should never have even got to this point. Where it is now is how it should have launched.
I think halo 1 through to reach was the perfect storm. The right team members assembling at the right time.
A once in a blue moon occurrence that we were lucky to have.
After the past decade or so I don't have much faith in the series. I kind of enjoyed halo 5s multiplayer for a time, but that was about it. I really hope that the right group of people can revive the series one day