The producers said the show was about the characters, the focus wasnt supposed to be about the island, the island wasnt the show. Everyone seemed to hung up on finding out what the island was that they forgot what the show was really about. I thought the ending was perfect. simply perfect. Also im going to disagree that after they died they went back to 2004, i still think it was present time in the afterlife, which is why Desmond went around trying to get people to "remember" their lives. Almost like he had to show them that they were dead. Once they realized that they were dead from remembering events in their lives most importantly, their loved ones, they accepted the fact they were dead and they were then "ready to leave".
