Uncle Roger and Michael, you're both right. DS descended into having the current time characters being haunted and then - BAM! - go back in time for months with unresolved plot-twists. Even in the brilliant PT of 1970 (which could've been further explored), there were the elements of Damien's ghost that was never explained, and what the hell did Claude North, whether alive or dead, have to do with it? Throw them in and then discard them. Gerard and Daphne were just a rehash of Quentin and Beth, and the time-travel didn't answer much of anything. That ship, the Raging Queen, or whatever she was called, was such a big thing in both present and past and then summarily dismissed.
OK, like I said, I came up with lots of stories and plots to continue DS. Along with the ones I mentioned, I had others, like Victoria's return (contemplating that Moltke would've eventually returned), a future Collins family member traveling to the past (ala the Charles Delaware Troll's brilliant what-if-it-had-continued synopsis) and it involved demonic possession that would destroy the futuristic family. A return by Barnabas to the CT-PT world to rescue Angelique, who has been totally transformed and is exiled there, to find out what has happened to Quentin, Maggie, Daniel and the rest. Collinwood is gone, being burned to the ground as what had happened in the OS, and the survivors are living in Loomis House and really bad things are going on. A new, reluctant vampire has moved into Collinsport. Petofi has returned, not as a ghost, but as a consciousness that left his body before he died in the fire in 1897 with lethal results. A curse placed upon the Collins' back in 16th century Ireland explains why the family is so tormented throughout time and lead to its extinction until - yup, another time-travel story - Barnabas saves the day and brings the series to an end. Again, if I could come up with all this, why couldn't DC?
Gerard