So far the biggest tragedy - loss of reload cancel.

Krysae and falcon were changed for the worse, but I do think a few had their reload delays buffed. Corrected below as a ROF adjustment.

I thought there were three components that affected reload time?

1. ROF

2. Delay before reload   <---- and I thought they adjusted this as well as ROF.  But maybe ROF and this delay are the same property.

3. Reload time itself

Yes, the delay between the last shot and the beginning of the reload animation was just the ROF delay. By decreasing ROF they therefore increased the time before reload could begin.

In some ways I'm glad there's no reload-cancelling, since I found it tedious to manage. But I definitely agree that it's way too interruptable. It's also inconsistent - these soldiers are dexterous enough that they can reload while hovering, but not while sprinting?

If I had designed the system, I'd have opted for staged reloads that remembered where you where when you interrupted a reload, like in Battlefield. Hell, they could have asked DICE for coding advice, since it's on Frostbite and all. But the chances of implementing that in a patch are slim-to-none, so I'm just hoping it becomes less interruptable. I like my Carnifex in SP with a Vintage* Heat Sink for this reason; I can do anything - jump, evade, fire a power - and it doesn't affect the cooldown time.

*Apparently the rate of advancement in the ME verse means something that was standard issue 1-2 years ago is now considered "vintage"

You provided the moral framework when you said it was 'abuse' of an unintended feature. If that didn't matter for your argument, then why bring it up?

If you didn't use it because you thought it was abuse, fine but you were wrong. Because you were already a good player? Pfft. It would have made you a better player, and therefor improved the team, quickened the game. Same hollow argument as players with 255 ammo consumables not using them cuz they don't need them to be elite. I don't really care if people make choices like that, but don't wrap it up in some epeen nonsense. Or maybe you're just talking about bronze, in which case it makes sense.

Well damn it looks like I've got you talking in trollspeak. Did not mean for that to happen. Apologies, I'll give it a rest. Let's bang in game sometime, just be sure to put some token gear on.

The talon pistol is by far the best shotgun to begin with.

No.

Reload canceling was introduced unintentionally to ME2 during its development, but the devs liked the feature enough that they let it stay in the final game. For ME3 the feature was specifically programmed in.

Do you have a source for that?

No.

Know why?

Because that's not what they said.