'Lost' in Sideways World

I am a huge fan of 'Lost' and I've been having an ongoing discussion with a friend of mine about the merits/drawbacks of the controversial 'sideways' stories that have been featured in the final season's episodes. (For the uninitiated, Lost has used flashbacks and flashforwards to tell the stories of the show's characters off-island. This year, they are showing what the producers have called "sideways" stories, which are stories in which the characters are living in what seems to be an alternate universe, one in which they never crashed on the island.)

All season, the sideways stories have seemed to have little-to-no bearing on the main story of 'Lost.' While I have enjoyed seeing the character's "If-Only" lives, I've also been hoping that the writers would somehow tie the two universes together. As the season has worn on, we have been growing more impatient with each episode, because the writers were choosing to make almost no connection between the two. But last night's episode, which featured my boyfriend Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), finally tied the two together. While it was great to learn that the sideways stories do have relevance to the main plot, I did think it was jarring the way it was revealed. (I'm trying to talk about this without giving out spoilers.) My feeling is that the writers could have more clearly foreshadowed how the sideways stories fit.

So if you're a 'Lost' fan, what do you think about the sideways stories? Have you been as impatient as us? If you were writing the show, how would you have handled it?