I though the finale wasn't that good, it was the weakest finale lost has ever done.
Now coming to the discussion part:
Continuing from my last post it does seem there are two separate entities/sides. One is jacob, richard and the others. The other one is jacob's enemy, smoke monster, widmore. Both sides have been trying to manipulate the Losties and as jacob died he said "they are coming" possibly referring to the Losties coming back from 1977 to the right time, this was perhaps jacob's plan all along to die and then be resurrected in a different body. This is why all the losties were brought to the island they are all "candidates" to be the new jacob. Furthermore it is now pretty much confirmed that all this time ben, locke, hurley, eko etc were all being actually manuiplated by jacob's enemy who could turn into dead people such as C.shepard etc. First he got hurley to let him escape from the cabin and then he made locke get off the island and return as a dead guy.