Blame Jason Jones and the Bungie higher-ups for making such a brash decision so late in development. Why wouldn't they trust Joe Staten based in previous works, and even more important, why were they so disconnected with the story in the first place? If I'm going to empower an amazing writer for a game that I'm creating, you'd better believe that I'm going to know the gist of my creation waaaay before 60days until shipping.