Exactly - he didn't even exist! His fiancé (who we see at the beginning would be with him ten years hence) doesn't remember he even existed. Where's the impact? She's forgotten him before they even take off. Amy gets maybe 15 seconds of mopey face and then they're off to Rio like nothing happened. Because nothing did.
Well if anything the loss of a regular cast member has made the issue with the crack a lot more personal for viewers.
The plunger/disruptor killed him, not the crack - all the crack did was conveniently remove any need to deal with the death, yet still remove the character allowing Doctor and Companion to rush off to more adventures without either a) a 'companion's companion' character holding them back, or b) the grief of losing a fiancé to muddy the waters of adventure. Pretty much just Mickey again. A character who was introduced as close to the companion so it was therefore difficult to explain why she was fine adventuring without him, but difficult to include him in stories.
The impact is for us the viewer and the Doctor. Would it help is Amy spent the next season moping about like Ten did after Rose?
Isn't it also obvious this will be sorted by the end of this series? which means we will have two episodes without Rory and then the final two-parter? How much signposting do people need? The constant references of "time can be rewritten!" to know that by the end of the series, one way or the other Rory will be back (which doesn't mean he's going to be around next year).
Yes the enormous bleeping Reset Button doesn't really make the death less pointless or more impactive on either us or the Doctor. In fact, if it wasn't so mind numbingly obvious it would probably have had more effect. As it is, we've seen him resurrected once already and it happening again won't give death number 2 any more emotional weight, especially as the one character who should be feeling this loss acutely and painfully doesn't even remember his existence.
Well at this point the set-up is such that it doesn't really matter either way - Amy won't remember if he isn't, and if he is, the death means even less. The outcome that I'd like to see now is that Amy's memory is restored, but Rory is not. Give his death some, albeit retrospective, meaning to his fiancé.
Hmmm... We know 10's regeneration was all kinds of batshit crazy. Could the Tardis have went or will go through something similar that leads to the explosion as the Tardis tries not to die/regenerate?
The piece of the TARDIS was one of the clues pointing to a big-ass reset button in the Doctor's future. I'm sure the annals of history could survive the loss of Rory, but the TARDIS wiped from history?
Counter sets back to zero, we get a new TARDIS (please no changing the outside-- though I can see that happening) and a new Doctor #1, perhaps?
Possibly - it would get rid of that pesky regeneration limit but then I suspect we'd just ignore that anyway A brand new TARDIS would have to explain why it still can only look like a phone box, of course.
No, whiny twat is accurate. Someone with critical faculties is objective. For example: Nah, you always get a pass for just being awesome.
I don't think Rory's getting resurrected either, but I agree with you that the memory of him has to come back for the death not to be completely pointless. I'm sure Moffatt is going to use Chekhov's engagement ring to achieve this.