It's the same kind of incestuous bullshit that heralded the end of televised Star Trek; once you've got entire storylines dedicated to explaining away quirks of production, you're out of ideas. I got my hopes up when I heard this originated with RTD. I got my hopes dashed once I read what it actually was.
Although, let's face it, a lot of that is driven by fans obsessing over continuity and inconsistencies and production details like the same actor playing different roles. Heck, Trek fans back in the '70s were spinning elaborate theories about the family relationships between Number One and Chapel, the Romulan Commander and Sarek, probably even Trelane and Koloth. It's not so much that the production has run out of ideas as that the continuity-obsessed fans have grown up to become the showrunners and are finally getting to put their ideas and theories into the show itself. Once Star Trek began to be produced by people who'd grown up being Trek fans, starting with Ron Moore on TNG, we started to see more and more episodes built around tying together old continuity threads. And now the same thing is happening in Doctor Who, and not only on Moffat's part. Neil Gaiman's episodes were pure fanwank -- they just happened to be fanwank on the level of Neil Gaiman's writing.
My slow brain thought that you were shipping Sarek and female Romulan commander from the Enterprise Incident. Got it now.