When the new rule for not being able to drop the flag in CTF was announced, 343 claimed it was to add another layer of team work into the game. They claimed that you could easily lone wolf a flag cap in previous games because you were able to drop the flag.
My observations:
CTF take far less team work as it stands now. The pistol is stronger and has a much faster kill time than any primary weapon in Halo 4. Why would I want a DMR that has takes 5 shots to kill when I can have a pistol that kills in half the time.
Old CTF played much better when you could drop the flag mostly due to one thing, flag running. Flag running was a PERFECT trade for stealth vs Speed. While holding the flag you walk slower, but there is no waypoint over your head. While running/juggling the flag, you could be clearly seen and heard, but could run at almost a normal speed.
No drops also took out very useful strategies such as pulling the other teams flag to distract them when I weapon is spawning or when they are in your base. Now when you pull it the only thing you can do is try to score it as fast as you can since there is an arrow above you that says KILL ME.
In Halo 1 - Reach, when you pulled the flag it wasn’t solely your responsibility to score the flag, it was your entire teams. If you died or couldn’t make it home, it was your teams job to keep the flag alive.