Having played halo since the orginal (although only recently joined the online side of things) i was dubious about 343 taking over but whilst i cant say they have done a better job they have done a good one. Sure there are issues and i hope they get sorted out but it cant be easy considering the well established fan base Halo has had from day 1.
CSR is seemingly in response to the 1-130 system ingame which has been fairly unpopular (and i have to agree in most ways) and there are ways of cheating but that can be said for any ranking system that i have ever seen.