He’d probably say that it’s budget (limited versus 20 years ago), but it’s not like you listed more characters than we have now. Brooke, Ridge, Taylor, Deacon, Hope, Thomas, Steffy, Sheila, Carter, Paris, Liam, Grace, and Zende have all been featured, and they could be doing much more than repeating the same tired dialogue every day and playing out a single A story (everything surrounding Brooke) and a segregated black B story in a corner (Carter/Paris). So much richness and character exploration is left on the table. There are times when it feels like JER at his laziest. Maybe they think the aging audience won’t be able to keep up with speedier or deeper storytelling.