Why is Warren being alive in 'The Long Way Home' a worse retcon than Spike being alive in 'Asylum'? :)
We didn't see Spike die. Ergo, no ret-con.

'Asylum' was, by the look of it, written specifically as a self-contained one-off story; 'TLWH' definitely wasn't.
Well yes. Which is the problem - s8 is spread so thin that it'll take years for anything to happen. And I don't believe it has to be like that. I think it's prefectly possible to do something profound in a short space of time. See Xander/René... actually, that *is* character stuff. But it's the only time. (Xander being my favourite character is a new and interesting development.) See Asylum again, with all it's OCs. Actually the thing is that s8 has to fight a lot harder for my affection and is giving me less. I loved BtVS to distraction and seeing it thus reduced *hurts* me.

I don't think the writer was taking it too seriously either, to be honest
And therein lies the problem. :)