By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
343i didn't make CEA, Saber Interactive did. Also, how on earth did they "mess up"? It's the exact same game as CE and the fact that they didn't implement an CE online multiplayer meant that the Halo community wouldn't be fragmented between 3 online games (Halo 3, Wars and Reach).
Also, implementing online for CE would take a lot longer than the development time they had for the game. Gearbox developed it for PC but it's not as simple as just porting it over to the console...
OT: Halo 4, by far. While I loved Halo 3's artistic direction, it shined through mostly with the multiplayer maps. Halo 4's art looks absolutely incredible, people saying "it looks like Reach" are simply retarded - since when was Reach set in a Dyson Sphere with floating Forerunner structures? -_-
[Edited on 05.10.2012 6:39 AM PDT]