I think Kendell is just the symptom of modern soap writing, which is take a character and write them into the ground non stop with never a stroll to the backburner so the ensemble can shine. AMC used to be like that, but like all the ABC soaps these days the concept of an ensemble is dead. And we see this poor writing style now on DOOL with the non-stop looking in on Nicole and EJ. It's bad writing which causes characters to wear out their potential years before they should.

Even at her height Erica's screen time was not so different from Palmer, Greg and Jenny, Cliff and Nina, Chuck, Mark, Benny, Phoebe and all the others. At least the disparity was not as great. Kendell, like Greenlee before her, is a nightmare that the show never seems to wake up from.

You nailed it. Erica used to occasionally go on the back burner and they would not pre-tape when she went on vacation. I remember missing Erica. I never miss Kendall, Zach, Ryan, Sonny, Jason, Carly, Claudia, Spinelli, John McBain, and Todd. These characters are overexposed and exhausted. Yet we never get a rest from any of them. They are on almost every single day get the most minutes of airtime. Tons of budget must go to paying for their salaries, yet the soaps refuse to cut back on their airtime. I don't understand how TPTB rationalize these stupid decisions. It should be clear that this formula is not working yet they refuse to change.

IMO Erica in Africa would have got a huge bump if Ryan&KWAK had been left out of it.

Dreadful as those two are, without them it would have just been Lucci doing her best Sally Struthers feeding the children imitation. No bump in that.