On Valdez, the 1st spawn has been named noob mountain by a heap of guys.
It's where all the scared lil sniper nubs hide.
Rush is without a doubt my fav mode.
Like you mentioned, it really requires team work and seems a good replacent for titan.
I only ever like conquest as a change of pace and will prolly rarely play it.
Without the minimap on in Hardcore though, the motion mine/detectors are useless.
I was hiffing them down the mountain and using them for my rifle rush in the past but now i am running blind. Rifle and pistol rushing needs all the help you can get
Bloody Metmap took full advantage of that and my stink fps/fov and owned me everytime I ran down blind. (no killcam to see where he was hitting me from till later when it was obvious)