Yep; when they added those huge time jumps, it just threw everything out of whack, especially with the characterizations. They wanted to show time passing, but they didn't bother to explain any of what might have happened during that time, and it makes me so sad, because Morgana is one of my favorite characters and Gwen had so much potential(which is why I shipped her with Arthur in the first place).

Really? How interesting. To be honest, I don't think too much about Merlin, because it feels like the show's actually done a good job on him so far(probably because he IS the titular character).
Also, I would read the hell out of that meta.