I may be giving them more credit than is due, but how could the writers not be aware? Take a look at the following example.
Gosh that’s…..yeah.
The inconsistencies in writing really make me think that the writers don’t talk to one another and just write what they feel like. And the fact that Jane wrote this past week’s episode makes me look at her work on Buffy and go “what the…”
If the writers are doing something consciously, it’s not with the intent to show why CS isn’t TL or why it can’t work. Remember, this is a plot thing. They can’t have a TLK break Emma’s dark one curse right off the bat. So they hem and haw and delay by having CS look even more terrible than it already does, but likely–come the 100th episode—they’ll have Hook somehow accept Emma as both light and dark, accept the Dark One inside and declare that he’ll love her forever no matter what (all evidence of the past episodes be DARNED!) and the you’ll get the kiss and BOOM. Curse over. It’s a delay tactic for the purpose of their narrative but only serves to ruin all of their story. I don’t trust the writers. Deliberate or not, they aren’t going to suddenly do an about face and have Emma wind up with Regina, have her wind up alone and happy as a single mother, or bring back Neal and go “yup. it was SF all along.” So, yes, the writers might know what they are doing, but it’s not actually a good thing.