The producers also said in some interview that they were just going to have Rumpel in the pilot and that was all until they got Robert. Who knows when exactly that all went down, but i think the initial thought was always the child of Snow White and Prince Charming, but then once they got Robert to be Rumpel, they decided to do more with that character.
I still don’t want Bae to be anyone else, but Rumpel’s son, just like Emma is only Snow and Charming’s daughter. That is by far interesting enough for me. And i think that when it was said that Bae went through the bean vortex into a land without magic that that needs to be true and so i think he went immediately to our world and not to Neverland or anywhere else.
I am agreeing that at some point, once they got green lit for the pilot, we can only hope that they thought out the purpose for the curse as one of the most basic premises. Though honestly at that point it may have been the basic premise of Regina wants to curse the whole world and just that. Everything that happens with Rumpel creating the curse happens in Ep 2 and the pilot has a lot of inconsistencies, but then so does Ep 2.