I think they do need to change flood, like I said on another topic, there should be two types of flood. One with a sword arm, the other with arms and can hold weapons correctly. I agree, finding skulls was really fun on Halo 3 and Anniversary, I didn't really like them on Halo 2. I don't know why they took this out. You can tell the difference between the Knights, but it isn't a lot of difference. I don't consider this a problem though. I never used dual weld that much, so I don't mind about it not being in but I can see how people miss it. Don't get what you mean by greyed out options. Brute vehicles and weapons wouldn't really fit in, they are not in the story at all. There are elites, and I don't see how brutes would fit in the story. Your game mode idea is pretty good, I would really like this to be put in the game. I like ordinance, don't see what's so bad about it. I agree with that forge loading, I don't understand why it was quick in other Halos but in Halo 4 it needs to load, I even downloaded the game to hard drive to see if that would fix it, it didn't. I would like to see Master Chief get some more respect as well, but this isn't a major problem. Shotgun in load outs is a bad idea, I think a lot of fans would hate it. I would love weather options and time of day options more than anything, it would make the game a hell of a lot more fun! Especially if they added lightning at night. 7 was a Bungie thing, they're not going to make that a special number anymore.
So, that concludes my point. I agree with most of these points but some are not major and I don't really think they need t be fixed. 343i could add an update to maybe add some of these, but not all of them.
I would love flood firefight! Great idea!