[quote name='n8rockerasu']I just feel like the people who are still trying to force the show to fit inside some neat little bubble of being about a group of "crash survivors" being "stranded on an island" and "trying to find their way home" are going to be severely disappointed. The show stopped being about that a long time ago (if it ever truly was about that). But to me, there seems to be a much bigger picture that some people don't even want to acknowledge. And that could be what the alternate universe is shining light on. People saying it's filler are going to miss the entire point.[/QUOTE]
That's all well and good. However, the problem is not that the alternate universe has no point (because, for

's sake, it better), but rather that there's no need to spend all this time in it in order to establish its point. How, exactly, is the show spelling out in explicit detail the fact that, without the Island, everyone would have better coping mechanisms but yet still the same basic personal problems in aid of anything but tedium? What is there to be gained from another episode which, lo and behold, shows us that Jack has daddy issues? That Sawyer is obsessed with revenge? That Jin and Sun's relationship is strained by their obligation to her father? That Ben desires power? That Sayid will do anything for, but can never have, Nadia? That Locke strains under the yoke of his own failures? That Kate can't help but keep running?
Basically, what I'm getting at is this: what part of this deeper meaning you're looking for couldn't have been established by skipping right from the alternate universe bits in the pilot to those in Desmond's episode? Because it seems to me that the answer is none of it, which makes all of the alternate universe crap in between filler by definition. And if I'm reading you at all correctly, it seems that if anything the show should be spending less time on character development, particularly of the unnecessary and redundant kind.