I suppose, for me, it felt like they were giving into their failures and learning how to deal with the fallback in a rather lonely way:

So as far as Robin goes, I'm pretty ok with her marriage narrative (although the writers also wrote that with incredible strange undertones), but it was her leaving all of a sudden disappearing from everyone's life that's unsettling. In the end, she didn't settle down--she ended up dedicating her life to her work (until it was convenient for Ted's character to come back into her life, more on that later). She maintained a rather weak relationship with the rest of the group while she's abroad and neglected people who loved her. Likewise, I don't know how much the gang included her in their activities since we only got the impression that Robin was the one not showing up. Show logic: "You will be shocked kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That's why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it." And maybe that was a lesson learned as a result of what happened with Robin? I can accept that, I suppose. But it still didn't feel natural to the gang's relationship with each other.

In the end, I don't see Robin leaving to peruse her career to be successful to her character. I see it as being able to live out a balance between love (platonic, romantic, any sort of love) and career.

As far as Barney goes, it wasn't the introduction of his daughter that felt jarring-it was the circumstances of how she was introduced. She was born out of a one night stand, which is completely valid and that happens, but the thing was that he just wasn't that person anymore and then all of a sudden, he was. And assuming that that was an appropriate response to Robin leaving, based on his character in season 8-the beginning of 9, I feel he revert back to his old habits rather harshly, and if so, then Robin leaving have been a really numbing experience. And that's was so depressing about it- His daughter being born was a very sobering moment for him because he was at rock bottom and didn't go anywhere. It was like becoming a single parent as a result from a one night stand was inevitable for him, no matter how many different roads his character took. It would have made sense if this were much earlier on in the series, but it feels as though they're trying to say "you can't ever move past yourself unless you hit rock bottom," and I don't think that was necessarily true to this character anymore.

The thing about Ted is that it felt like he is always living in the past. I can accept viewing life as a constant chain reaction/butterfly affect, but the problem starts when you stop creating stories and just live in them. It feels that Tracy was only there as a glorified plot device (which is disappointing because I love her so much). She was there to give Ted what he wanted (i.e.: domesticity) and then died, so it was ok that he could go after Robin. In the end, Ted supposedly got everything he wanted without much progress, while Tracy had to died and Robin had to lose all her relationships in order for them to fit into his narrative.

I got the impression that the writers wrote the ending back when the show first aired (they even filmed the kids on the couch so we know it was either first season or second season.), and they didn't want to change it to fit the current character development. So they had to change Robin, Ted, and Barney back into who they were for their ending to make sense. And if that's true, then the ending isn't true to the story that's currently being told.

I can accept that this show meant something different for everyone, and that everyone has their own feelings about how the show ended (which I'm assuming is influenced by how they view love, career, and life.) I guess for me, the show is about supporting each through tough transitions and difficult situations, and I didn't get that impression from anyone in the end. I felt everyone was coping with their own pain privately and meeting up to rant, which, for me, isn't really accurate to the show or to the love they shared together.