After letting it sink in I'm happier with the ending. When it first ended I had a thought bringing me back to an old idea that the whole process of the island was part of purgatory or this holding area. But then I snapped out of that and back onto what you just mentioned. That everything that happened up to that point was real and only the sideways portion was after death.

It does leave a few issues though.... Such as... Where was Sun and Kim's daughter? (maybe not dead yet) Why was Aaron still an infant? (he didn't die as one) Why was Libby there while others were missing?

With regards to the other people, there was one line I can remember, where Hugo asks Desmond about Anna Lucia. And he tells him that it's not her time yet - or something along those lines. It would have been interesting if the people who weren't ready yet were so because they hadn't actually died yet in reality. But that's obviously not the case because we know Anna Lucia is dead. This whole sideways part opens up a lot of possibilities which are probably best left unthought of - such as, is everyone we see dead? Have the people in that holding place experienced their full (alternate) lives in that place? Did they suddenly pop in only when they died? There's history in that space.

But I agree, it's a nice way to bring back together characters that have died at various times throughout their reality.

The biggest question by far however is... What's next for the people we saw?

And then there's also... What about for those that weren't there at the end? What happens to the people that had nothing to do with the island but were simply involved with the main characters? Jack's son for instance. Charlie's brother. Do the main characters remember their post-death lives in addition to their real lives? That could be confusing as hell for them. For the love connections, are we to assume that the people who died later than those we know died first didn't find other loves? Or that those people are just SOL in this particular afterlife because it's islanders only? What happened to Ben staying outside? Just doesn't move on perhaps?

Why did everyone seem to know where they were going and know why they were there except for Jack? I mean even after he had his life flash back.

Why were Rose and Bernard there at the end? But no Walt nor Michael. Also no one that landed on the island from the ship, like Miles. Arzt wasn't there either and didn't he live longer than Boone on the island?

What's the motivation/reasoning behind some of the lives of the characters being completely upside down in this place compared to their reality, while others are very similar? I mean it would have been interesting if in this place everyone was leading some kind of life that filled in a void from their previous reality.