It was an armour given out by bungie specially to certain people. Until ODST came out you couldn't get it without it being awardrd to you.
I'm still pissed 343 never released the other armor options in Reach. The image in the defiant map pack montage was TOTALLY a different helmet 343 and no amount of saying it wasn't isn't going to make me believe it.
The recon armor was Bungie exclusive until they started giving it out to random people. The first of which was some person that filmed themselves getting killed by a traffic cone, which became a meme. The flames stayed employee exclusive.And everyone obsesses over what they can't have.
I thought it was because kids were too lazy to go do the Vidmaster Challenges.