Uninspiring in what sense?
All the artistic flamboyancy of his personal struggle aside, he went into the house 1st because he was scouting. He was on point, & he dazed at a photo too long & didn't hear a slurping, gurgling corpse slough into the room he was in. A surprise zombie around the corner in the wild I can understand more because of the ambient noise of the wild, but there's none of that in a suburban house. You'd have to be a ninja to go unheard in an empty, unpowered suburban bedroom, distracted or otherwise. It was an uninspired death.... Mundane (Which they may have done purposely, I admit)
If you subtract all the bells and whistles of cameos & hallucinations & one hell of an amazing actor's performance, it's as lame a death as Beth's or even T-Dog's. Even Bob's walker bite was on the weak side
I suppose I have my own issues with suspending disbelief, in the sense that in order for a zombie show to continue to keep the zombies relevant, people must still occasionally die by them, but the longer the show continues, the more these people would improve their skills & are even shown doing so, such that these kinds of "Helpless" attacks get tough to swallow. We should be somewhat beyond characters getting "Daled"
I can't recall, but the last time I saw a main character death that was walker related, which didn't prompt disappointment from me, might have been maybe Merle. I could be forgetting somebody though.
now that they know enemies could be lurking outside the gates, all daily life has to be moved inside, on the roof--anywhere away from the view of the wrong people
Living like a band full of hermits doesn't sound all that appetizing either. They'd still have to do supply runs & if they plan to make a go of it, they'd still need to bring in more people. Hell, digging a worthwhile ditch would be a huge undertaking without machinery. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but there's no better isolation than sea. Surrounded on all sides by water & posting lookouts that can watch for the rare event of someone else with a boat coming at them, which is still going to give you some warning time for signals or radioing or what have you. It's the best isolation & most defensible position there is. If people spot you & plan to raid you, they have to follow you back to it via a boat, which makes them easy to spot, and easy to rout.
The only thing I can think of which offers anywhere near as much isolation on the mainland would maybe be a cordoned off upper level of a skyscraper or tall building, with only one method of egress, but even then, it's still highly vulnerable to fire attack. The prison was good, but they would've had to live in it like inmates for it to last, & even then there's no guarantees that somebody doesn't come along & spot what's going on, and start getting ideas
When the whole thing is rotten, the only option is to defect, but they aren't ever going with that idea. They won't even mention it, because it's too smart & has the least options for conflict/drama. So without that, they'll
never be safe