Life After Harry Potter: An Epilogue

It's been almost a year since I was standing in line outside Barnes and Noble with a bunch of freaks and weirdos waiting until midnight for the release of the last installment of the Harry Potter Series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Admittedly, I am not one of those who was with Harry from the beginning, having become a fan in 2005 after giving into the persuasions of one of my best friends. But like so many other embarrassed adults (I think I now know what it must be like to go into a store and ask for an adult magazine after going into Barnes and Noble and reserving my copy without a ten year old escort), I got sucked into the world of Hogwarts. However, I have to confess, I was disappointed with J.K. Rowling's finale, and don't give me the "How can anyone live up to the expectations and hype" excuse. Peter Jackson did it! Return of the Jedi did it! SG1 did it! David Eddings did it! I just don't buy it. As good as it was, and I still class it as good, for the first half of the book I felt like Rowling didn't have a planned direction. Some of the narrative felt rushed, several payoffs from setups earlier in the series were ignored or only superficially addressed, and I felt like I needed a pad of paper to keep track of the arbitrary body count. Again, I really did like this book, but felt that maybe if Rowling had taken a little more time, perhaps made one more review of the rest of her series, it might have been a much more satisfying capstone to what truly is a "magical" epic. So in summary, here's what I think Rowling did right, and what she did wrong.
Virtues:

• Harry was a Horcrux (any other explanation would've been terribly disappointing).
• Snape was not evil (The Prince's Tale was my favorite chapter).
• Doby's heroic death (that almost made me cry).
• Harry had to die...kinda.
• THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS!!! (can't wait to see that on film!)
• Neville Longbottom goes toe to toe with the dark lord.

Vices:

• Hallows? Why haven't we ever heard about this before? Was this really necessary?
• Dumbledore's dubious past. Not that interesting (at least not until Rowling outed him.)
• Ridiculous number of deaths. After a while, I just didn't care who died.
• Months of unsuccessful Horcrux hunting. The characters were bored, and so was I.
• Snape's death was anti-climatic.
• Harry essentially tricked Voldemort into killing himself. What a let down! Everyone in the book was always talking about how much hidden talent Harry had, and after he repulsed hundreds of dementors I thought that we would see that talent re-emerge in his final conflict with Voldemort. Harry and Ron have ANOTHER falling out. Come on, been there done that.
• The epilogue. WORST EPILOGUE EVER.

Now that the series is complete, I think Half Blood Prince ended up being my favorite. Well, that's all I have to rant about tonight. Let me know what you think. I dare you...