I agree with all of this. Unfortunately, I suspect part of the problem is just that the issues of decline and exhaustion are more subtle and complicated than this show was equipped to deal with, even in its best years. Certainly too complicated for the stable of writers they've got now.
In terms of *feeling* what's happening to the characters, I think the single biggest mistake the show ever made was devaluing death. I'm okay with the deaths of Sam and Dean at the end of S2 and S3 because the resurrections came with huge consequences. But that should have been it. No one else should ever have come back. We've seen so many resurrections now that death is a revolving door. And as much as I love "Dark Side of the Moon"--it would be on my list of all time favorite episodes--it set a bad precedent. Sam and Dean know they're going to Heaven when they die. Not in the way religious people know there's something better on the other side because they have faith, but in the way I know there's a grocery store on the corner because I've been there. That makes Sam and Dean different from every real human being who's ever lived. Death can't possibly be as dire for them as it is for us because they know for a fact they'll meet again. It makes them a little less human, and it makes the threat of death on the show less powerful to the viewer.
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In terms of *feeling* what's happening to the characters, I think the single biggest mistake the show ever made was devaluing death. I'm okay with the deaths of Sam and Dean at the end of S2 and S3 because the resurrections came with huge consequences. But that should have been it. No one else should ever have come back. We've seen so many resurrections now that death is a revolving door. And as much as I love "Dark Side of the Moon"--it would be on my list of all time favorite episodes--it set a bad precedent. Sam and Dean know they're going to Heaven when they die. Not in the way religious people know there's something better on the other side because they have faith, but in the way I know there's a grocery store on the corner because I've been there. That makes Sam and Dean different from every real human being who's ever lived. Death can't possibly be as dire for them as it is for us because they know for a fact they'll meet again. It makes them a little less human, and it makes the threat of death on the show less powerful to the viewer.