I don’t think its fair to really assume that those who dislike stuff about the show are only doing it because they are upset the ship they wanted didn’t sail.
I agree with this. I wasn’t even really ready for Emma and Neal to get back together when he died. I think they had so much more to talk about then what was said, just like i think that Emma and her parents have so much more in depth things they need to talk about with regards to Emma’s childhood before their relationship can just be done and happy. But the build was swanfire. Even now, Emma and Neal have had much more in depth conversations about their past and what happened to them when they first met then Hook and Emma have had. Emma and Hook have been dating for months and done all sorts of terrible things to one, worse then what happened with Neal which was bad, and yet Emma and Hook have still have not had in depth conversations about those things. And those things keep building. With Emma and Neal it was the one thing, the one life altering incident. With Emma and Hook it is more like fifty things, fifty extreme and damaging and abusive things.
And that all comes back to me liking Emma and wanting her character to be consistent and well developed and Hook being her love interest does not do that for her.