The cocking mechanism on the halo 1 rifle was never designed to be used to aim down the sight though, rather a hud system was used instead. See halo 1 marines, that green thing over their eyes was supposed to do just that if I recall correctly. Thus your face was never really close to the rifle at all. Though you could always say it's for left handed people only unless it's ambidextrous, but even if it was left handed it would still be incredibly unergonomic as you'd have to go to great lengths just pull the cocking mechanism back since it'd be on the side facing out from your center rather than in...
As for the reload animation, it looks pretty neat from a sci fi point of view, I like it.
