This. Exactly this. I'm so damned tired of Buffy and Angel being incapable of growing or changing. I feel like in the comics, not only have they not shown growth, they have regressed. So we're getting the same conflicts we got in S2, S3 and S4 (and to some extent in S5 in the crossover ep). Angel is still making decisions for Buffy (and others) and keeping her (and others) in the dark. Buffy is disconnected from folks and unable to move past Angel. You know what? I'm tired to death of these as plot points/character motivations.

And where the characters have changed, I can't see the how/why. How/why did Buffy become totally detached from the laws of man (i.e., robbing banks, etc.). How/why do we have Angel willing to sacrifice the world (including his friends/son) for a new universe with Buffy? With Angel, at least, this was one of the ways he *had* changed over on AtS. His only connection to the world *wasn't* Buffy. Instead, he had his gang and later his son. Why the disconnect where Buffy is the only thing that matters to him again? I don't get it. Just don't.