I don't even see the helmet removal as blasphemous. I'm just weighing the pros with the cons.

Pros: not really anything that couldn't have been done with helmet on.

Cons: We lose the iconic voice that Chief is known for & from now on the very first face reveal of current age Chief (the argument of his face reveal as a kid is hilariously stupid) will forever now be associated with not his own, unique identity, but of the identity of Pablo Schreiber.

So where is the benefit of it from a creativity or entertainment stand point? There really isn't one. It was just an objectively bad decision. Simple as that. And it's the easiest one to not mess up. So if you can easily fail that, what else are you about to fail