What does title update 4 needs to do to save this game from being put out to pasture by even more gamers?

Just like everybody else I was expecting near perfection the day Gears of War 2 was released, unfortunately here we are over 6 months later still waiting for that day.  Although Gears 2 had a stellar campaign and amazing co-op play the aspect that was most anticipated was the supposed revamped and refined multi-player component.  Revamped it was, refined not so much.  Since the beginning Gears 2 has been plagued with bugs, exploits, glitches, and shoddy decision by Epic Games themselves.  What I want to do here is run down a list of things that should be fixed or altered in the fourth title update.  We should also take note that no other game in the history of the Xbox 360 has had as many full patches.

HOST ADVANTAGE

This is the big one.  Before Gears 2 was released there was a lot of talk from the Epic camps regarding this issue.  That talk ranged from the issue being resolved to being significantly better than the first game, in either case it wasn't true.  Now, I understand that host advantage always exist and I understand how the network functions , but what I don't understand is how games with so many more players function so much better(ie. Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4). This issue has been grossly exploited by the use of lag switches and connection bridging.  This host connection issue need to be looked at extensively before this game could ever be a great multi-player experience.

WEAPON CONSISTENCY

Again this issue is more often than not related to latency, but even in low lag situations the hit detection in Gears 2 seems very odd sometimes.

BLAST RADIUS AMPLIFICATION

For some reason when a persons body explodes it seems to also become explosive.  If you are near someone who blows up by grenade, rocket,or mortar you seem to blow up only because they did.  It seems as though the explosion travels in a chain through bodies.  It is extremely annoying exploding a full 1-2 seconds after the grenade and the person who triggered it.

RESPAWN INVULNERABILITY

While I agree that it is lame when people camp spawn points to farm kills I also find it extremely annoying when someone spawns beside me and I can't kill them but they can kill me.  This becomes a huge issue on maps where opposite team members end up in areas near spawn such as Pavilion and River  

MATCHMAKING/PLAYER CYCLING/QUITTING

Although the matchmaking is heaps better than it was in the beginning it still needs work, compared to other games it is still too slow for the rudimentary matches it makes.  Also, when people leave a game before it starts, on the vote screen, new players should be cycled in.  Every other high brow shooter out there does this, so why doesn't gears?  The bot system within match is okay, but I cannot find a reason why players can't be brought on before match.

Another point to make, why can't we have persistent lobbies? Restarting the matchmaking process after every match becomes redundant and time consuming.  A persistent lobby system similar to Call of Duty would work much better. Sometimes you need to quit a game due to other things going on, or an exceptionally laggy game that you can't play.  The penalty for quitting is fine, what is not fine though is not having an option to leave a match in the game.  Put in a quit function.  It is simple.

STICKY GUY/ROADIE RUN PAUSE

I think it is time that the issue of spawning without weapons is fixed, as well as the issue of randomly getting stuck in a virtual pothole in the map.  Sticking in one spot with the inability to defend yourself is very frustrating.  The next thing is the roadie run pause, this was implemented in TU3 to stop the rampant 2 piecing and roadie gunning, however I do believe this did more harm than good.  Imagine running around a bend and running into an unseen enemy, you try to shoot but can't...you are not allowed, but they can unload on you all day.  Putting a player in a defenseless position for wanting to traverse the map faster is a very interesting solution to the problem of roadie gunning.

OVERALL

In conclusion, the online of community of Gears of War 2 wants nothing more than respect.  Thus far Epic has not given that.  They offer quick, mediocre fixes to substantial problems instead of attacking the issue itself.  They concentrate on delivering more content and map packs for a broken game rather than fixing it.  They are more interested in the quick revenue than they are at pleasing their fan base.

This is ot to say Epic hasn't done good things, they ahve fixed some of the problems, but I hope upon their next release they learn and don't lean upon patching so much.  Patching a game 4 times in a little over 6 months is a bit of a spindle.  What they will tell us is they never stop supporting their games, they never stop fixing issues, and they never stop delivering.  What we know is they delivered upon us an inferior product that could have used several more months of development.

I think at this point if TU4 doesn't make gears what it should be then it is time to say goodbye.  I already know at this poit I'll probably never buy an Epic Games product upon release until I know the beast that lies within the pretty packaging.  I do sincerely hope TU$ brings vast improvement, however at this point I am quite the skeptic and I do not think I am alone in this.