Did the writers shy away from resolving anything?

No it's not. Just because the possibility of revival exists, doesn't mean someone isn't dead.

 

I think you're confusing death with sleep.

I'm not talking about heart or brain activity being revived. I'm talking about stone cold rigour-mortis dead.

No one comes back from that.

Tuvok and and Neelix came back, ergo not dead.

 

I'm not. You can be revived from both sleep and death.

I was.

Neither Tuvok nor Neelix experienced rigor mortis. Their method of death was reasonably unusual. (Other people have been killed in transporter accidents, but I don't know of any others where the matter from two people was combined.)

If they weren't dead, they didn't need to "come back".

Would Tuvok and Neelix have spontaneously reappeared without the destruction of Tuvix?

 

Death in the Trek universe is clearly more complex than it is for us but that fact only gives support to the idea that Tuvok and Neelix were not dead. Death seems almost optional in the Trek universe so choosing to abandon Tuvok and Neelix on the basis that they're not both individually there when Tuvix is, doesn't hold up.

Actually, they might. Had Janeway chosen not to restore Tuvok and Neelix, the possibility that those two minds might have started to reassert themselves individually is there. I've always believed it would have been better to keep Tuvix for a number of episodes (maybe half a season) before a way to restore them was found. This would have made Janeway's decision even more powerful and it would also have given us a chance to see if Tuvix suffered any negative consequences to channling two consciousnesses into one.

Additionally, does the destruction of Tuvix (as a consciousness with physical form) mean that his consciousness is truly destroyed? What if it went back to where it came from (since so many people tell me it was not just a confused combination of Tuvok and Neelix, it must have come from somewhere else, right?)

 

Perhaps that flower was sentient.

 

I think the writers had a habit of never resolving ongoing threads, to the show's detriment. If you think of the show in a bubble of some sort, it helps. I think it was certainly more frustrating to watch when it was on every week, but these days now we know what we're getting ourselves into when we re-watch, it's easier to just get on with. Accept the limitations and embrace the good.

 

If "this person off the street" were (through no fault of their own) composed of the two people who you were seeking to release and return to their original independent state, then no, you in no way would be a murderer.