Never really understood why actors left Y&R after the flip to one hour.

Because, to be perfectly blunt, working conditions under then-EP John Conboy were bad enough. Doubling the length of each episode only exacerbated the issues.

I'm always struck that fans are demanding stories move faster while complaining that the stories aren't deep or meaningful..... you can't have it both ways.

Not unless we're talking about primetime. ;-)

But seriously, I think the greatest danger in speeding up the pace of stories on daytime is that the writers tend to burn out faster than they should. No way would scribes such as Bill Bell and Henry Slesar have survived for as long as they did at their respective shows had they been forced to tell stories as quickly as today's writers are telling them now.

It's not just the burn out - which is real. It's also the fact that when they miss playing all the beats the stories just don't make sense. I don't give a rat's ass how great something is in the mind of the writers, if that can't be conveyed then it's all garbage.

I think it's often forgotten that soaps are supposed to be a cross between a warm bath and a roller coaster. Trying to copy movies or action shows or anything else is a huge mistake.