Man, if they just made the multiplayer like Halo 2 and Halo 3 we could enjoy dual-wielding complicating damage tables, "superjump" glitches, fire and forget ability pickups that are hidden to other players until used, animation glitches for altering firing rates and action timing, aim assist turned up to 11, very imprecise spawning weapons, somewhat imprecise precision weapons, disruptive geometric detail, script kitties running mods with spawn traps and automatic snipers, douchebag dudebros slapping their e-peens EVERYWHERE, and a field of view equivalent to playing with an upside down lampshade on your head.
Cmon dude, you're combining elements of 2 and 3 and acting like they were the same game.
- Dual wielding. A legitimate complaint, it was a stupid gimmick, and I'm glad it's gone, but post patch H2 which made nades and melees more powerful (especially combined with BR starts) nullified dual wielding to a great degree. And in Halo 3, almost nobody dual wielded anymore anyway.
- Superjumps were a Halo 2 only issue, and nobody is acting like it was a good thing.
- Fire and forget abilities? I'm assuming you're talking about Halo 3 equipment here? If that's the case, then the problem is even worse in Reach/H4.
- Button glitches. Halo 2 had them, Halo 3 didn't. Honestly, Halo 2 would've been a much worse game without BXR/BXB/doubleshot, it added a layer of depth to the game, and made melee battles a lot more skillful than the shit fest they've been from Halo 3 on.
- Aim assist. This is an odd one, since Halo 2 and 3 were extremely different from each other in this area. Halo 2 had the most aim assist of the series, while Halo 3 had the least aside from Halo: CE. Reach and Halo 4 clearly have more aim assist than Halo 3, especially on precision weapons like the BR/Sniper/Carbine etc.
- Imprecise starting weapons. Yeah, SMG/AR starts were stupid, but the community endlessly bitched about this even at the time, and it was a problem easily resolved just by changing the starting weapon to the BR.
- Somewhat imprecise precision weapons. Another odd criticism considering how wildly different Halo 2 and 3 were from each other in this area. Halo 2's BR was very accurate post patch (try loading up split screen and shooting from very long range, like well outside the range when your crosshair stops turning red, you'll still 4 shot most of the time), the Sniper obviously had 100% accuracy (except for a tiny bit of imprecision while no-scoping), and the Carbine was very accurate too (though less so than the BR). Halo 3 was totally different here than Halo 2, the BR had horrible accuracy, even shooting from top lift to mid sniper on Guardian against a standstill player, you'll average 6 shots to kill simply due to the terrible accuracy. The Carbine was better, though still somewhat inaccurate, and the Sniper retained perfect accuracy.
- Disruptive geometric detail. This problem didn't exist in Halo 2, while it was horrible in Halo 3. Extremely annoying, though this problem still exists in Reach/H4 (though not to the same extent).
- Modders. A problem in Halo 2 (especially the first few months after launch), pretty much non existent in Halo 3. This doesn't actually have anything to do with the game, though.
- Douchebags. Are you seriously acting like this is any better now than it used to be? And as if this has anything to do with the actual game?
- Terrible FOV. A legit problem, very annoying, but this isn't any better now than it was in Halo 2/3. Try playing widescreen in Halo 2, the FOV is the same as it is in recent games.
Halo 2 and 3 were very different games with very different problems, it makes no more sense to group them together than it does for 3/Reach. I'd take the problems from either of those games over Reach and Halo 4 though, that's for sure.
The biggest problem with Halo 2 and 3 was something you didn't mention, which is that both had freaking AWFUL netcode. Halo 2 in particular, the game had no lag/latency compensation whatsoever when you're shooting an opponent at range, meaning that off-host, the BR was basically useless even when you're shooting an opponent as close as red to blue base on Midship. The Sniper had the same problem, you couldn't shoot somebody farther than red base to Rocket spawn on Coagulation and expect your shot to register off-host. How Bungie could possibly overlook an issue that huge, I have no idea, but it was terrible. Host was basically god in Halo 2 over XBL. There were other, though lesser issues with Halo 2 online, like grenades not coming out off-host until a full second after you throw them (meaning it was impossible to throw a grenade off host a second before you die), etc. that have been resolved in later games.
Halo 3 resolved the long range shooting and last second grenade issues, but it also had the worst online hit detection of the series - instead of hit detection being solid at close-medium range and nonexistent at long range like Halo 2, it was simply mediocre to bad at all ranges in Halo 3. The amount of times a guy with no shields lived through 3 perfect BR bursts to the head, or a clear headshot with the sniper (confirmed by going into theater mode and watching from third person in slow motion) was ludicrous. It also had a bizarre "bullet-dropping" phenomenon. Notice how off-host, you can shoot 11 bursts with your BR, then a second later, you'll suddenly go from 3 bullets to 5 or 6? According to the game, you never shot those bullets. In a game where a split second often means the difference between life and death, this is a big deal. There were also several other, more minor issues with the netcode that I won't get into.
My ideal Halo game would be something a lot more like Halo 1 and 2, with much better netcode, and without all of the necessary gimmicks of more recent games (equipment, armor abilities, sprint, perks, etc.) Hopefully the poor online population figures of Halo 4 makes 343 realize they need to go back more to their roots with Halo 5, rather than make their game conform to the rest of the industry like they did with Halo 4.