From the bulletin:
We couldn’t figure out how to design Halo 4 multiplayer. Room full of smart people, all with game designing skills and the resumes to prove it, and we could not tie a bow on the core mechanics in the outline stage. Then Frank O’Connor says, “Maybe we add ordance, loadouts, instant respawn, and join in progress.” And we all laughed, because that was so wonderfully absurd. A half hour later we still didn’t have an idea of how to implement the ideas intelligently. Eventually we let all of it into matchmaking because, come on. That’s pretty awesome, making arbitrary changes with little core value.*
*Actually an edited quote from the bulletin about Spartan Ops
Yes this was intended as a joke. I do take legitimate grievance with some of 343’s decisions, but this was not intended to be malicious.