Weapons and Encounter Times
Halo 2's weapons, compared to Halo 1's and perhaps compared to other shooters, work or combine in such a way that the average time of any given encounter is greatly reduced. This makes any latency you are experiencing a greater percentage of the total encounter time than it would be if it took longer to get a kill, and places a lagged player with dual SMGs going up against a player also with dual SMGs is at a greater disadvantage than if both players had single SMGs.