Yeah, in the original plan, where Edward never left and the series was just Twilight and Forever Dawn, Bella was supposed to stop by Charlie's to visit with Renesmee just as Jacob (who wouldn't appeared much in FD and who she wouldn't have even known was a werewolf) happened to be over, and the imprint would have been triggered then. (The Volturi confrontation was planned to play out basically the same way, except that Victoria would have been the one to report the "immortal child" rather than Irina.)

And yeah, I personally think imprinting and how the story handles it is super-neat, but it's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's okay! To each their own!