Not sure why the current trajectory for armor designs are completely outside of the halo universe. I know everyone thinks they look cool. But the hype won’t last because its not good enough. Its cheap and lazy. Its not just about looking cool, its about the uniqueness to Halo and the immersion in the Halo universe. If you want something that will be good and last longer than trends, you need to make it unique to Halo and not fuse cultures from the real world into a cartoony looking armor set like the gladiator stuff was. What is next? Knight armor? Viking armor? Tiki armor? The thought of this kind of design trend is horrendous and will not be accepted by the Halo community.
If you want a clear example of a better alternative. Just look at Reach. (The fans keep telling you to take from Reach’s example, but you don’t seem to get what made reach good. by looking at what has happened so far) Every armor piece in Reach was original and unique to Halo. There was no influence from the real world, or cultures. It was Halo specific designs for different specialized operations in Halo. Take more from those influences if you want a lasting, successful design. Make more pilot styled helmets and armor, make more stealth purposed helmet and armors, and things that we can actually see being apart of a Spartan program for actual purposes, not a Samurai, “cool” looking armor set. And for goodness sake, don’t make people pay for it.