I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with this repeating issue. I just got off the phone with Microsoft Customer Support about the issue and took the multiple steps down the (painfully obvious) road. I did some research before the call and came up with several meathod to try. Some of which most of you may already know. I tried most of them, but was dissapointed to see my Spartan's rank still stripped to a lousy SR-1... But from what I read some of these methods actually worked for some people, but IMO (which actually pains me to say this...) just wait for 343 to get off their asses and actually FIX the servers. For those who are unaware and willing to try their luck (Lets face it. For some people, desperate times call for desperate measures.) I'll post the 3 methods I tried... so far...
1. Delete you Xbox LIVE Profile and Recover it back. (Do NOT blame me if you have recovery issues.) (Source: Gamefaq.com)
2. Move your Profile onto a flashdrive and play Halo 4 on a different console (Source: My Friend)
3. Unplug you Router and Modem for five mins. and plug them back in. (Source: Microsoft Customer Support)
Hopefully 343 won't make us wait too long, but I'm not putting my hopes too high. But I do know that they will absolutly have to do something before Christmas comes. Theres no way that, in their current condition, the Halo 4 servers will handle the extra load of players by the 25th. 343 will HAVE to do something by then.