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I personally prefer Phantoms, while Spirits are a good design in terms of art, as a ingame drop ship, they are inferior to the phantom, the only advantage a spirit can have over a phantom, is that it can possibly carry and deploy more vehicles than a phantom.
As for "canon", the reason you don't see any phantoms, or spectres is because they were not made or properly developed when Halo CE was released, yet the books prove that they did exist in Halo 1.
As for usage of these dropships, I think Phantoms should be used in major assault/space battles, like city levels, and such.
As for Spirits, they should be used in levels where the covenant are merely scouting for things/artifacts, and not hunting humans.
The only time you should see both at the same time, is either in cutscenes, or in a Covenant Ship level.
Oh yes, the Halo 2 Phantom and the Halo 3 Phantom are a bit different, the Halo 2 Phantom has only two entrances, one at the back, and the gravity lift, it can deploy troops via gravity lift, as well as easily carrying up to two ghosts or a Wraith.
The Halo 3 Phantom as multiple entrances, and it deploys troops similar to the way a Spirit deploys troops, however, the gravity lift is seldom used.
[Edited on 11.18.2009 9:02 AM PST]