I'm sorry that would hurt the role of the AR which for some reason is considered the alpha weapon in Halo devs minds... despite the fact weapons requiring accuracy - BR in H3, Pistol in ODST, DMR in Reach - were the most popular weapons, respectively. And that's with a higher amount of default SMG/AR starts in those games.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if the AR wasn't fluffed up to be even easier to use (not having to be aiming at people to hit them in Reach says hi) compared to other weapons.
I genuinely don't understand it. I dunno if we have any impressions of the AR yet, so I can only pray that 343 gets it and doesn't crank the power up on that thing while simultaenously gimping other weapons in the name of "balance".