I think they need both, though.  Player matches you can browse/create and play in that are "unranked" and ranked matches that you get matched with with no choosing.

I used to enjoy Rainbow Six being that way because I could guarantee I was host and everyone would have a great connection to me.

Ok, I get ya.  Yeah, that would be nice.  Bungie thought about doing that, but they said that it divides the player pools and makes it hard to keep the matchmaking system working well when the pools are so distributed.  That is why they have a finite number of playlists and whenever they make changes, they have to think real hard about what it does in terms of pool sets.  But it seems like Halo has enough players to allow for that sort of thing.

LOL.  I am sure that you love being host.  Everyone does.

Thats what I mean

Oops, I thought that was you who responded to me.

call it somethung other than halo

Make it realistic,like CoD but with halo weapons and story.

It's not just about being Host.  Sure I like the slight advantage it gives, but when I am host, my connection is so good and fast that the advantage is almost non-existant.  When I am host on Gears, all the good players have high kill counts and easy shotgun kills, not just me.  I enjoy being host because of all the hosts I've ever played on mine seems to equalize things about the best.

I don't know. The online multiplayer is much less important to me than a much improved campaign mode in the vein of Halo: CE.

Well, geographic location matters almost as much as bandwidth for hosts.  So regardless of your connection speeds, not everyone is gauranteed to have a good connection to you.

Not for me.  My fios has incredible ping even across country.  I ran speed tests and I get similar results no matter where I pick.  Granted they may not have super great ping but with my upload sending to them bullet fast it really helps