I have never played with a dedicated team and I imagine that playing with the same people over and over again is a HUGE advantage to just playing with randoms. Sometimes I get the worst teammates and it makes for a shitty time although I have no doubts that there are quite a few times when I'm the horrible teammate. Just the simple act of staying close to at least one of your other teammates seems to be a must, nothing like getting rolled up on by 3 heads when you are all by yourself, lol. I know for a fact that so many of my flaws as a player have to do with my lack of discipline though. I get frustrated sometimes and then that's it, I just tend to do stupid shit.
As far as how Halo compares to other FPS' out there, I can only speak about MW2 because that's the only other game I have played online. That said, my K/D on MW2 is like 2.5 something and was still rising. I don't know what it is on Reach but I'm sure it's nowhere close to that so for me MW2 is way easier.
I LOVE paying for Xbox Live! I also love that my love for it pisses off so many people.
