LOST Season Finale 'The End'

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There was a mawkish sentimentality about this episode that started
with the weepy violin music and climaxed in the final
scene in the church. Everyone is reunited and gets to go
to heaven together, groan.

'The End' was so full of loose ends, ambiguities and just
holes in the plot I'm having serious difficulty
determining what the writers intended to say. I can't
figure out if they were just incredibly sloppy and
careless or if they're doing this on purpose trying to be
artistic or something.

Many viewers believe that the whole six seasons were a
dream or vision in Jack's mind as he lay dying in the
bamboo grove shortly after the crash. The juxtaposition
of Jack's death in the bamboo grove (where he originally
regained consciousness in the pilot) with the credits
rolling over scenes of the wreckage of Oceanic 815 on the
beach seems calculated to suggest this. Once you start
thinking about this possibility, all the loose ends and
lapses in continuity take on a troubling new significance.
Is this intentional? Are the writers playing games with
us, trying to suggest a number of different possibilities
without committing to anything?

How does Ben get out from under the log?

Jack is seriously wounded and seconds from death (or from
becoming a new smoke monster) in the glowing cave, then
the next time we see him he's at a safe distance outside.

What happened to Desmond? Did he just get up and wander
off?

The glowing cave is the most isolated spot in the world.
Fewer than 10 people that we know of have ever been there.
Who dropped the water bottle litter?

Jack seems to go through recovering his memories twice,
once when he meets Kate after the concert, and again when
he touches the coffin in the church. What's up with that?
Why does Locke arrive at the church in his wheelchair?

For some time I have believed that the detonation of
Jughead created an instability in time and space which
lead to two alternate universes temporarily being equally
"real", and that the instability would eventually be
resolved with the destruction of the Island universe. The
Mirror universe would then fully become the 'real' world.
We saw the people in the Mirror world awakening and
remembering their lives in the Island world. Effectively
the souls of the Island protagonists were transmigrating
into the Mirror world.

In 'The End' there is nothing to indicate the destruction
of the Island world. In fact there are numerous
indications to the contrary. Desmond believes that the
events on the Island are of no consequence but Jack
contradicts him, saying "It matters". A good chunk of the
episode is devoted to the ultimately successful escape of
Lapidus, Miles, Sawyer, Kate, Claire and Richard, as
though we are supposed to care, implying this is all real.

Apparently the intention of the writers is that both
worlds go on existing side by side indefinitely.

People who were 'awakened' in the Mirror world but also
survived in the Island world include Hurley, Ben, Sawyer,
Kate and Claire. Did they all become like Desmond who
seemed to carry on a simultaneous existence in both
worlds? When we saw the dead people in the church
welcoming Jack into the afterlife should there have been
two Kates, two Hurleys etc? (Were there two Kates? Kate
drops Jack off in her car, then we see her again inside,
in a different outfit.)

Bummer for Aaron and Ji Yeon in the Island world, though
at least their parents get to enjoy facsimiles of their
children in the Mirror world.

When Christian says to Jack "This is a place you created
for yourselves", I initally took this to mean just the
church. But a lot of viewers are taking 'this' to refer
to the whole Mirror universe. I would find this
profoundly unsatisfying, but it would explain a few
things. There were continuity problems in the Mirror
world, like Sun and Locke arriving at the hospital at the
same time, Desmond's disappearing wedding ring and the
improbable level of coincidental meetings and subsequent
involvement among the Oceanic 815 passengers. In this
view, the Mirror world is a sort of Purgatory. If so, it
seems problematic that people still among the living are
present there.

Pairing Sayid up with Shannon like that was just lame.
Nadia was Sayid's soul-mate. Shannon was just a fling.
It's as though they abruptly paired Sun up with her
English teacher in the end with all the blurry-lensed
fanfare of true love.

The episode had some good moments, but overall this was a
disappointment. I feel like this was an end of the season
cliffhanger, not a series finale.

A few critiques of the series as a whole, now that it is
over.

Why, after the failed(?) detonation of Jughead, did the
time-traveling Oceanic 815 survivors return from 1977 to
2007? This has never made sense to me other than in the
context of being necessary to take the story where the
producers wanted to go with it.

What do the Others call themselves? It strains
credibility that this was never once mentioned.

Why did it become impossible to have children on the
island?

What happened to all those children that were kidnapped by
the Others? What did they want them for? (To replenish
their numbers because they couldn't have children?) I
realize the producers just changed their minds about where
the show was going and dropped this plot thread but it was
fairly major at the time and it would have been nice to
see this acknowledged with some sort of explanation.

What was Widmore up to? Did Jacob really invite him back
to the Island? Why after taking so many precautions did
Widmore come over to the Island and set himself up to be
caught by the Man In Black? The way they set Widmore up,
he seemed pretty important to the story. It felt abrupt
the way they just dropped him all of a sudden.