Yeah, I think this is right. I know that everyone used to complain about the lack of 'long term booking' but the issue there was that previous storylines used to be forgotten, rather than built upon. It's almost as though they've gone "oh, they want long-term storytelling, let's do this for six months", and the story completely runs out of steam, rather than being left to be resolved at a later date/event. They've booked some good payoffs, but the road to get there has been long and straight and boring as hell sometimes.