In a recent interview with Edge magazine showing an inside look at Bungie, Chris Butcher (technical lead at Bungie) said that they messed up the schedule and didn't have a "polishing" time with HALO 2. He said that he hates to play HALO 2 multi-player because of this. He says that HALO 3 is going to be polished and it's going to be much better than HALO 2. Woot! His quote:

"One of the things that stuns me when I think about it, and I can't believe this is true - we had [no time to polish] for Halo 2. Take that polish period and completely get rid of it. We miscalculated, we screwed up, we came down to the wire and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it. Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right. It's astounding to me. I f***ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it. And that's why I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better."