I do agree that they just have too many characters on the show right now, and it's hard to really make any kind of attachment to the characters when sometimes a character won't even be in an episode for a good while. Just look at Charlie. Last seaspn I would have been furious if they had killed him off, but this season he's hardly done anything of note, and it's like he doesn't even matter anymore.
At first I thought it was really exciting when they brought in the other survivors, but I'm starting to think it might have been a bad idea.
By the way, Darren Aronofsky is going to be directing an episode of Lost sometime in 2006! I'm really anxious to see that.