i think that worrying about bloom and armor abilities is ridiculous. if you think that a new developer is going to just come in and make halo 3 or 2 again, you're wrong. the new DMR/BR will be something NEW. bloom? maybe. who knows? what if it's not a 3-round burst or single shot weapon? what if it's a more accurate automatic assault weapon?
armor abilities could be fixed and rebalanced in SO MANY WAYS. no good developer out there wants to take a franchise back a step. who would buy a game that's already been made? it's going to keep getting layers.
if you don't want armor lock, play arena, classic, mlg, objective, snipers, swat.. seriously. plenty of people LOVE armor abilities, and taking away what some of the less vocal community members want would be a huge mistake on 343i's part.
