They could easily add the little snippets of island life in, just replace the flashbacks. It was important in the beginning to show how the characters came to be where they are, but now it just waters the show down and makes it go sooo slowly.

The people on the beach don't have to just be twiddling their thumbs. The writers could easily create storylines for them. This is a story in progress, no where does it say that the people on the beach can't be doing stuff. The writers have control of their fate just as much as they have control of JKS. The problem is that they are focusing too much on that storyline, and that storyline is moving so slowly. Six episodes and this is all that has happened:

- The Others need Jack to perform back surgery on Ben
- Kate and Sawyer have sex

Only one of those two things are even relevant to the plot. That could have been accomplished in one episode, but it has had three to four devoted to it. Compared to the beach people (also had threeish episodes):

- Locke saves Eko from a bear
- Desmond develops psychic powers
- Eko dies
- Desmond's ship gets stolen

That isn't much. Saving Eko from the bear shouldn't even count since he dies anyway.

Anyway, the point is that I don't think the show is budgeting its time and resources as well as it did in the first season. To say that the other characters aren't doing anything so why show them is the wrong way to put it. The writers aren't giving them stuff to do, focusing too much on one plotline that is dragging on.