I actually would have loved for them to have gotten the fully realized friends-with-benefits angle (I still can't remember her early episodes well enough to figure out why that wasn't a given, but to me, she always read as in that column) because boys - and girls - have needs after all, and if there's someone out there more touchstarved than the Winchesters, you show me (I mean the way they HUG when they get to do it...). But it also would have given voice and screentime to a kind of romantic (well, romantic adjecent) human connection that is not the norm and therfore greviously underserved in the narrative arena of our times even now. I've always felt a certain warmth and sturdiness in the dynamic between Sam and Eileen that was both deeply platonic and flirty/sexy at the same time. People can be what they need to each other without fitting into that great-romantic-lovestory mold and I'd have loved to see that. Ah well, that's what we got fanfic for :)