I agree that he became like Willow in terms of importance, but Willow was never pure comic relief like Wesley and Xander were at times. Wesley got to stop being comic relief after his big ep, whereas Xander actually became more pure comic relief after his. God, I will never forget him being zapped, everyone ignoring it, and us apparently supposed to find it amusing.

And with Willow... they backed away. In Season Six, they did make it appear like it wasn't about her real issue: power. They fixed that a bit in Seven, but she was in a holding pattern almost all of the season.

Buffy, I'll definitely agree with as having changed. They've taken risks with her. I love how they developed Buffy. But they seemed to put Xander, Willow, Giles, and Anya (at the least) all on hold. They all should have been changing too and they could have shown that without focusing on it.

Buffy is a big fan of Big Moments. Which can be an enjoyable thing. But sometimes they forget that getting to the moments and seeing what results from them can be just as interesting.

Andrew got his Big Moments, but there were points when he seemed just as he had before he'd had his epiphany ("Faith is a killer. Never forget that." was too easy for me).

Spike works with the Big Moments because he's mostly a show anyway (Giles had him pegged right in Restless).