From my experience thrusting abilities and sprint have almost no impact on gameplay other than helping to get into the action faster. I’ve only seen a few attempted charges and zero ground pounds. In the heat of battle both my opponents and I have been more likely to use traditional attacks and defenses.
Furthermore, smart-link performs almost no differently than normal scoping in previous games. Very rarely do I attempt to kill from across the map with an automatic weapon.
Ever since I switched to my normal Recon the game has felt just like a natural evolution of Halo.