They made pretty decent geometry changes in the updated variants (the connecting hallways of Breakneck were outstanding), but even beyond Battle Canyon their weapon placement was largely atrocious. Two snipers within 5-8 seconds of each other on High Noon, a shotgun beside each teleporter exit on Highlands, moving defense Rockets from a dangerous spot on Breakneck to the totally safe rear hallway (putting offense rockets behind the ferris wheel where 95% of players didn't even know it existed). The list goes on but those are the obvious offenders. If you really want to get picky, their objective item placement has not been very good either - bomb arm locations outside the base on Battle Canyon in a killing field, High Noon offense/defense bases switched from Tombstone so that Defense Base is little more than two ramps and a flat area, etc.
They have shown a decent ability with the last Halo 2 pack and Anniversary to update existing maps for new generations, but the stuff they did from the ground up with Reach left a lot to be desired. I don't have super high expectations for them in Halo 4 as a result. I already have significant issues with how they've structured Dominion, but that's probably a separate issue.
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I check the traffic for the dumb site I run every once in a while and those stats include search terms that lead people to it. Usually it's South Americans and Eastern Europeans looking for a Halo 4 trial (why am I the first result for "Halo 4" on an Italy-based search engine, exactly?), but occasionally I get some good stuff. Today, it's an instance of "halo 4 global ordinance pattern?" and "global ordnance drop halo 4" and "how to get the bianary rifle more often in ordanance drops." People are asking Jeeves and the Googles how a fundamental gameplay system works. If there is any reliable indication that the huddled masses don't understand something, it's this.
