Because every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints

Among the cameos as we head toward home plate, I never expected to see Rousseau or Ana Lucia. So their brief appearances in "What They Died For," the penultimate ep. of the rapidly winding down Lost was a hoot.
So too was the ep. as a whole. We got a boatload of answers. We got some more major character deaths (Widmore and Zoe and presumably that's the last we see of Jacob). We got the storyline winnowed down to its climactic fundamentals, at least on Earth 1 (Jack and crew vs. Smokey over the light at the heart of the tunnel). And we got the pleasure of seeing more threads tied together on Earth 2 with characters bumping into each other all over the place and the fun of trying to figure out what Earth 2 Desmond actually is up to. (Presumably it has something to do with getting our characters back on an Oceanic flight, seeing as how he punk'd Jack with a phone call seemingly to get him back to the airport).
After seasons worth of speculation, it was good to finally see a clear cut, voice of God explainer of some of the major questions we've had. Yes, the chosen Losties all are there because they were flawed people ripe for some sort of redemption (sucks to be you, Rose, Bernard, Frogurt and everyone else who just happened to be on the flight). And the reasons why Kate is now off the list - actually having something to live for off the island - fits into that well.
And we got far too little Miles and Richard, though it was nice to see a return to form for Ben on Earth 1 (and indications of an interestingly creepy potential future for Rousseau and Earth 2 Ben).
We also got some annoyances. Ben is just able to gun down Widmore when previously there were some kind of never-explained rules that kept them from killing each other? Widmore turned from baddie to redeemed guy because Jacob enlightened him to the error of his ways? The character Zoe ended up being killed off without ever fulfilling any kind of role? Is Richard dead? That's what passes for instructions on how to safeguard this island - a few mumbled words, a swig of water and a "son, you're on your own" sendoff? Even the Greatest American Hero got an instruction manual.
And how is it that Jacob was able to go off island to the Losties to begin with? As we saw last week, the whole issue boils down to he and bro being unable to leave.
I imagine that a lot of these questions never are really going to get answered in a sort of 'leave that to the imagination' kind of way. And frankly, entertainment is rife with creations that had great buildups that didn't hold together under the light of day (I'm lookin' at you X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, numerous Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels), so having not everything spelled out from a storytelling standpoint is perhaps better, despite the inevitable howls of viewers who've been watching this as a puzzle to be solved.