Their seems to be quite a serious problem with the live network, major nelson has said that he will get E on the podcast to shed some light on the problems occuring but I think this talk of so many new members is abit of a scapegoat.
Live has been abit flaky since late september ( Halo 3 launch ) and has seemed to hobble with a slight limp until recently when it fell apart.
I would love for a bit more clarity from MS on the issue ( I know I am dreaming ) but for a paid service, customers ( especially gamers who like technology and all that goes along with it ) should be properly informed of the problem as this would make it easier to swallow when such problems arise.
Again for a service that costs money on top of the console and games aswell, MS deserve to treat their userbase a lot better than this.