Regarding the Activision/Bungie partnership, I am not as worried about Bungie staying independent as I am about the way Activision treats their customers. Are we going to have to pay $15 for future map packs by Bungie? That may be the case for all map packs given the success of the MW2 maps, but Activision is the company that set that trend. Bungie has said in the past that they wanted to give Halo maps away for free, but Microsoft didn't let them. Imagine what Activision will do with the pricing.
Also, look at what is happening with Starcraft 2. There are going to be three separate retail releases spread out over the next few years, with only ONE playable race in the campaign. The previous Starcraft releases (original, Brood War) both had separate, lengthy campaigns with all three races playable. Plus they are killing LAN support, and I also heard rumors that Battle.net, their currently free online play service, will have some sort of pay to play structure in the future.
And they recently charged $25 for a mount in World of Warcraft, which apparently previous mounts were free. I don't play WoW, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.
My point is, the partnership may be good for both Bungie and Activision, but I don't see how this is good for our wallets.