why was aaron a baby in the church? he lived at least to age 3 or so in the real world; does he not get to choose his own image for the afterlife? and, if that wasn't aaron but, say, claire's and kate's imagined version of him, why was he still there in the church when they were ready to move on?

for that matter why was it 2004 in the flashforward?

additionally, why did david exist?

and, why was the island underwater?

the only reason for those last 3 is the same reason jin was heading to the hospital in "ji yeon"--to screw with the viewer. david served no purpose. he added nothing to jack's character or plot, so his presence tells us that the sideways universe, this afterlife they all are stuck going through until they can move on has been going on for years, long enough for jack and juliet to have had a relationship in the past and to have moved on from it... that kinda sucks for an afterlife, if you still get married and divorced and nearly od (like charlie did) and have to kill people and nearly get killed yourself (like sayid). now, if they wanted to have some sort of combination of say hindu reincarnation and alternate universes, these people could have actualy ben living their lives over again, and then again and again, and desmond could gather them together every time to go back to save the island again... but now, i'm drifting into fan fiction. back to the complaint at hand:

it is 2004 in the sideways because that tricks the viewer into thinking that blowing up jughead worked. and it convinces the viewer that the sideways universe, by some magical means, is real, and will matter to the plot

the island is underwater because it is a nice visual that, again, makes the viewer believe jughead seriously changed things. the "incident" was no longer some event people on the island survived (and that probably made it so women could no longer have children on the island) but something singularly catastrophic... except, it turns out, it wasn't

and, the show is on again now... kids watching it as they couldn't stay up for it on sunday, and i just noticed something else annoying. if the sideways stuff is the afterlife, and christian is "alive" there, then his damn cardboard box should not be having a scene at the damn airport. is that box meaningful to some airport worker we don't even know about?