Star Trek: Into Darkness, with Spoilers

Misc thoughts, with spoilers on ST: Into Darkness

• With all the fan servicing in this installment, why not have Pike end up stuck in box only able to communicate "yes" and "no" with a single beeping light? 
• Holy shit was there a lot of fan servicing. Do you really want a jokey reference to a previous movie at the big climactic moment where the main character appears to die?
• If the final face off between the Enterprise and the Vengeance is right next to Earth, why don't any other Federation ships intervene?
• Ms. Day is extra correct when she says "seriously, in the future not one woman over 40 is in charge in this world?!  How can that happen?" The plot pivots around Kirk, his commander Chris Pike, and Pike's commander Marcus. Someone in this hierarchy could have been female. You could do this either by making Marcus female--imagine if Carol Marcus had played this role in this timeline--or by not having Pike continue to be Kirk's immediate superior.
• Chris G., somewhere I can't link to directly, notes that there is really no reason why old-Spock should be all cryptic about what he knows from the alternative timeline.
• Few people, writers or fans, appreciate the Prime Directive. It is not an arbitrary rule devised to create moral dilemmas for the characters. It is also not some weird artefact of a show that first appeared during the cold war. It is a hedge against imperialism. For once, our explorers are actually noble. They are not bent on conquest. They are not interested in finding proxies for conflicts with rival empires. This will continue to be relevant as long as there are empires.  
• Why is it called Into Darkness anyway?