Well, into the great yawning void that is Halo news at the moment, a few pebbles must fall.
We forget exactly what it is former Halo Creative Director Nathan E. Bitner is doing right now-- an academic pursuit of some sort springs to mind-- but in any case it doesn't seem to be occupying his attention fully, as he's had plenty of time for posts in multiple threads of the Bungie.org forum on issues like violence in videogames, gore in Halo, Jason Jones' email, and what might happen in Halo when you use the sniper rifle.
Matt Soell has also weighed in on one of those threads, offering that there will be more information about Halo, or ass-kicking as he puts it, Very Soon(tm), as well as a comment on Bungie's hiring Nathan's Mom and a nugget about Halo's release schedule.
Someone asked what happens if Halo isn't ready for the X-Box launch next Fall, and Matt responded:
The answer to that is simple. If it doesn't get done in time for the launch, it ceases to be a launch title. Nobody would be especially happy about that, but life would go on.
Not especially happy is probably an understatement there, but it does emphasize that the rollout schedule for the X-Box hardware is probably more critical to Microsoft than the release of any one title, even Halo, given that the GameCube is coming out around the same time and the PS2 will have been available for nearly a year.