Damon Lindelof at the Paleyfest Lost reunion last month talked about this issue as well:

I didn't compare building a car to writing a drama vs writing a sitcom. I compare writing 1/2 hour of tv script vs. 1 hour of tv script every week. There are 1/2 hour drama (like Bold and the Beautiful on daytime soap).

The plot lines may be intricate and I know that there are plenty of studies on Arrested Development. But there is a difference between a mythology based drama vs. a sitcom —- and how they are analyzed.

Sitcoms aren't being analyzed like hour long mythology drama series with freeze framing. Also Arrested Development doesn't take itself too seriously and breaking the fourth wall constantly.

There are no long term plans because they are in a business that can get canceled at any time.

But at least the Lost writers acknowledged the fans by QUICKLY writing a new episode to kill off Nikki and Paulo after the fan base complained.

They filmed the kids with hundreds of different reactions —- they could have used a few generic "come on", "that's it?", "you are kidding me" reactions.