I'm not terribly concerned about "exploitation," I'm concerned that the AA's will simply slow the game down. Armor Lock wasn't "abused," but it was literally a pause button in MP that also blocked everything. Hardlight shields slow the game down, people seeing through walls slows the game down, a turret blocking an entrance slows the game down, people camo camping slows the game down.
Halo is already slow enough.
These appear to be valid concerns we agree upon. However I don't particularly think Halo is 'too slow' outside of vanilla Reach; although 85% bloom is arguably a bit slow, not to mention the dice-roll that is bloom most of the time.
ZB with increased speed seems about as 'fast' as I'd want the game to be, especially if strafing is important once again.
Armor Lock wasn't terribly exploitative too. It just ruined combat. Hard Light shield has the potential, to do the same, just not on the same scale.
Also, Jetpack is pretty exploitative in its nature.
Then we have things like regen barriers and auto sentries. Yeah, we don't know exactly how their work, but by their name alone you can see how they can lead to some problems.
No, no, wtf. Those aren't 'exploits'. Those are things that you don't like and disagree with their implementation.
An exploit is literally cheating, or breaking game mechanics willingly. Bungie made Armor lock to be a pause button, its not exploiting, no matter how much we dislike it.