Better to surprise than to disappoint.
I don't see what you're so pissed off about.
You're acting as if Bungie took everything and took it down a hole, beat it with a club, and said it wasn't changed.
Instead, Bungie combined all of the the good things from the previous Halo games and mixed them together while still fixing the errors.
Compare Reach and Halo 3, the only different is that Bungie fixed a bunch of problems and added new cool things.
It's now very similar Halo 1 which if you ask -Blam near- any Halo fan who's played that long was the best one.
Where weapons did what they were supposed to do, they all had power, some more than others, you knew you were a supersoldier, you really felt it.
The difference yet similarities in all weapons gave a balance.
Halo 3 in my opinion, sucked.
I play it now because it's got the new features and I can actually play it online. I still love the game, but Bungie messed it up. They reduced damage on a lot of things because apparently explosions shouldn't kill you and maulers were overpowered because everyone could get something that gave them an edge. It was like the pistol from Halo 1. They called it the Equalizer because no matter what they had, the pistol could take you out, so what happened? Bungi nerfed it to hell because it was what the people wanted, the pistol sucked for the next few Halo games. Same with explosive damage, In Halo 1, grenades and rockets would mess you up if you got too close, and Master Chief could chuck grenades across canyons. Now the pistol is badass again, and grenades do or atleast did, kill like they should, they're damned explosions. Don't whine because something has a purpose or make sense, just use it to your advantage like intended, it's not overly cheap, it just makes sense.
Like loadouts, I don't see your problem with them.
Instead of everyone being spawned witht the AR to be slaughtered by anyone who picked up anything else, you get to choose what you want.
You can go with a weapon and AA to suit what you need, like Camo because that guy won't stop sniping you or Armor Lock to mess with the sword guy.
Accept the new, it's taken all the good into one big super good. Kicked the bad, and fixed glitches.
EDIT: And the reason it's called Halo: Reach is because it's in the Halo universe, you read stuff about Halo because that is the setting for it, not because every single thing about it needs to be on a Halo ring, that's just stupid. The fall of Reach is a vital story element to the Halo universe, it's why most of the Spartans are dead and why Master Chief was so important.
[Edited on 08.04.2010 6:22 AM PDT]