Logistics of the Show: LOST edition

So, over at Artistew (the conglomerate blog of artists I contribute to), it's LOST week.  So, today, we'll hit a little bit of a LOST vein.  Also, if you're not reading Artistew, you should be, it's way more interesting than this guy, because there are mutliple personalities running around in there (mine included). 

If you are a LOST fan, you no doubt noticed the lack of certain characters in the ending.  This irked the bejesus out of me.  What about Walt?  His dog was in the episode, but no Walt.  Remember waaaay back in Season 2 when Mr. Eko was building a church on the island?  Helllloooo?  Parallel to the church in the finale? I think so.  Then why no Mr. Eko?  Those I've talked to have their various explanations about these character's irrelevancy to the others, etc, but i still think it's lame.

MY instinct was, "Maybe all the actors weren't available."  I was told that this was indeed laughable, because LOST had more money than god, and could get ANYTHING they wanted for the finale, but it brought up the question to me, "What about the rest of us?"

What about those of us working on shows that don't have million dollar budgets?  We make sacrifices to our vision and have to re-write scenes and intentions to accomodate for the limitations of our budgets and the constraints of live theater.  Who is the better artist?  The one who sticks with their initial intentions, can afford everything they want and preserve the complete original integrity of their vision?  Or is it better to be the artist who can adapt a piece to a community and a budget? 

Some of us will find ourselves on a journey where we must adapt early in our careers and as we build our credibility and success we'll have the luxury of sticking to our guns, but will that make us better?  Aren't we always growing and improving when we're faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge and find a creative solution? 

So here's my conclusion to the LOST effect, clearly we had some really genius and creative people involved.  And they had some crazy ideas that turned into a black cloud monster/man in black/body snatcher of sorts (that turned out to be reallly cool), but because they could have WHATEVER THEY WANTED, we were also presented with polar bears, and characters who were kind of swept under the rug as they tried to tie up all the loose ends.  So kudos, LOST for presenting us with a fairly satisfying ending, in spite of the missing pieces created by your overindulgence.