In order armor pieces to be selectable they have to be in the mainmenu.map which hosts the actual interface for configuring your biped. In addition, there are explicit tags related to player rewards which are shared across all maps. Since tag data is statically linked into each cache file (vs shared resource data, which can be externally referenced, eg campaign.map), new player rewards (ie, model customization) could only be done by rebuilding all cache files.
e: CA does contract work. For instance, they helped with the newest CoD. Since they have Bungie vets, it would make sense for them to work with tools and concepts which they already have previous experience in (as they did with Halo 2). "Easy" money. It relives 343i of the DLC burden (the actual production part anyway) when they're already doing so much more and are probably still trying to figure out if they're going to use a 3rd party engine or an internal engine for their first Halo game (and they're still hiring senior positions).
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