Apologies if you thought I was being dismissive - but that was not my intention. However I find you are reading too much into a text which does not deserve reading into.
If reading it carefully spontaneously leads to lots of thoughts, I think the text deserves being read.
I get that people want different things from a story. That remains my basic point. Lynch is the sort of writer who delivers a different sort of story. It doesn't make sense to add him to a project that has very different aims.
That said, BtVS (and AtS to a lesser extent) get taken seriously by all sorts of folks because it deserves to be read carefully. Joss has explicitly said that the philosophy and whatnot is there intentionally. It's meant to be a dense show. So I think it's valid to expect any work that's to be part of the Whedonverse to repay close reading. Season 8, for all its flaws, does. AtF does not.
Now, we could argue (fairly) that BtVS was also a show that was dramatically engaging. And there's no doubt that season 8 isn't doing that for a ton of folks. I think the real test case will be what the audience that comes later makes of it -- the ones that haven't gotten entrenched in their views of the story during the long hiatus between season 7 and season 7, and the ones who get to read the season all at once, rather than in pieces over four years. But for the audience reading with Joss -- the pacing has been terrible. I admire the leap forward and what I think is meant to be going on with the disconnect -- but it was asking a lot of readers to hang on with a world that was deliberately skew for years without any explanation.
That last paragraph was me saying your criterion is valid. But I think mine is equally valid. And alas, it seems that we have a split. AtF is more dramatically engaging for most fans (though I thought it was tedious, democracy counts on this question). Season 8 is more engaging for fans who care about the density of a classic Joss work. It's a shame we don't get both. But the real argument between us is which matters more. And again -- it's because there are different values and different aims that I think Lynch belongs at IDW and not at DH.
You wanted my reaction to some 'problems':
I think Angel was always dark. I think he got yanked back from some distant place and this is what Angel becomes when the human connections (such as they are) are lost. Most notably after Connor is long since dead an buried. Angel was always tenuously connected to humanity. He always relied on cerebral power to figure out how to be a hero because his intuitive core is Angelus and is not onboard with the program. He's always been invested in the notion of himself as champion. He's always been invested in the notion of reward. He renounces them periodically. But he also keeps coming back to them. He kind of has to because he's never going to be motivated from his deepest self, because his deepest self is an unrepentant evil bad ass demon. (That's his pathos).
A big divide, of course, is that you probably don't read Angel from the series this way. And one of the big problems I had with AtF is that it wholesale dumped all of Angel's darkness. In addition to splitting density and drama, we've also split Angel. His good self stayed at IDW. His darker self moved to DH. The true Angel has always been both. That said, I think this was always Angel's end game. He's saddled with Angelus. That's his bottom line. (His pathos is his valiant struggle to overcome his dark destiny. But it's always a failing struggle, as the spiral down over the years showed).
It's nice that IDW will tell this story. But frankly, I don't need to know it. Spike and his bugs completely charm me. I dont' mind Spike blasting in having gone off to adventures on his own that lead him to being the captain of a quirky ship with a quirky crew. Part of learning to read Whedon's comics is to learn the merits of not being spoon fed. It took me a while, but once I got it I liked it. Brian spoon feeds.
This is a tale I'd be interested in. Though it seems to me to be a straight-forward extrapolation from NFA. Angel made some very dark decisions. It makes sense to me that Spike would stop assuming that Angel has a functional moral compass and that Angel wouldn't like the implied (true) judgment. Again, this isn't an issue in the Lynchverse because all of Angel's dark got whitewashed big time (Lorne got his groove back).
The how doesn't much matter, though I used to think it did. The why is that they're living in a fairy tale land now, and Buffy is a princess in her castle. Or the virgin queen. We've definitely jumped mediums here, and that's the big obstacle for a lot of folks. BtVS always commented on TV genres and their tropes. Now it's in a new medium and that shifts it's focus. In any case, the opening line of season 8 is massively, massively important: The funny thing about changing the world is once you do it's all different. The metaphors have all shifted.
This was flat out a mistake. It's plotty McPlot stuff and it doesn't bother me. Lorne getting his groove back, OTOH, goes to the heart of NFA, and just flat denies it. (As does refusing to even mention Drogyn).
The show has been about convenient MacGuffins since the word go. Hellmouth anyone? Souls that change in function depending on the situation? Dawn being genetically different from Buffy but made of her? PtBs who can take a day back because it serves the plot? The show makes a point of the plotty McPlot ridiculousness because that's not the point.
I don't think the things you mention are bad writing. I think the things you mention are you expecting one kind of story and Joss telling another. It'd be like complaining that Nirvana doesn't use counterpoint as effectively as Bach. Different artistic visions, different measures. My parents can't hear the glory that is Nirvana, but it doesn't mean they aren't great. Lots of folks can't hear the glory that is Bach, but it doesn't mean he's great.
And (last time I'll repeat it): it's the difference in artistic vision/standards that is why it would be a disaster for Joss to bring Lynch on board.
