The original ending without jumping with Prometheus was very blunt and unambiguous about you dying in a horrible manner.
Then Mass Effect 3 came out, and ironically we decided LOTS OF SPECULATION FOR EVERYONE worked better for our game than theirs.
I'm *really* surprised no one has called us out on what the ending is an homage of...
About the ME3 dig: LOL, and yes, thank you for that. Except ME3 didn't have 'speculation' so much as 'there is no possible way for this to make any kind of sense whatsoever'.
About the homage: I think that's because it's so obvious--Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (sp?), and on top of that you've got the Bolivian Army Ending trope. I thought it was fantastically done--both the voice acting and the structure of the scene.
I have to admit, I was a tad disappointing that I couldn't order my wingmen to land on the Prometheus (or that none of them did it themselves), and all they do when YOU land is to call you a coward (rather than a pragmatist living to fight another day--in which your abilities might save many more lives time and again).