Welcome back Dax! Glad to see you posting again.
When you mentioned the Hornet section in Halo 3, the first thing I thought of was flying the Pelican on shutdown, and how 343 went in the exact opposite approach to guiding you through the level. The sky is completely empty aside from the towers you're going for, all you have for guidance is two waypoints. You fly straight ahead for a minute until you reach the tower, the shoot the Phantoms that are already there until you can land. Why not have phantoms and banshees in the air at the beginning, guiding you from one tower to another and giving you something to do aside from fly in a straight line with nothing to shoot?
Compare this to New Allexandria, the mission Shutdown is blatantly trying to copy, and you can see Bungie nailing every aspect of that mission structure that 343 got wrong.