I had already posted this once, but I will put it here also, per a "Forum Ninja's" suggestions.
Bungie wrote:
Top Questions we've received on this matter:
1. OMG! The announce was posted at 7! This is all part of the plan.
The news was broken to us shortly before 7 p.m. and we decided to keep with tradition to make a clean break.
2. Why leave the splash page up if it's not happening?
We left the splash page up for the folks who didn't see the message or were planning on tuning in the following morning before the news vanished into Bungie.net's ether.
1. Why would you keep the tradition? Knowing this would create chaos, why in the world would you do it on seven, Bungie's holy number? People expect good things to happen when you do things like this. For example, just earlier on 7/7/08 (Bungie Day) you released Bungie Day Gamerpic7ures for free, and also the Bungie Day Theme for free. Which eludes onto number two.
2. That is a great question. Why would you leave it up? They purposely left it up for people to come home and think "Holy cow! Could this be what I think it is?!" Sorry, but no. You get a letter posted on top of the splash page that only adds to the confusion. Not to mention stopping the countdown timer at such a coincidental time. This could have been dealt with so much better if they had simply removed the page, and put a detailed story up on the regular web page about what just happened.
So you look through the forums and find posts with about four words or less - "It's not a joke." That's it. No details or anything. You should have seen this onslaught of confusion, frustration, and chaos coming.
Highly disappointed,
~ oZ