I think what people are longing for is subplot that develops the character arcs so that their choices in the final episode make sense. Dany is an obvious one. Throw in a few events where she starts making increasingly questionable decisions instead of just flipping the light switch.
The first two episodes could have covered more prep for the battle outside of "everyone's building #stuff". Flesh out the plans so we can see how they succeed or fail in the actual battle. This is good opportunity for characters to oppose or agree with one another and to plant seeds about the ways their relationships will break down in later episodes. Instead these episodes were spent on the characters catching up with people they cared about. Yeah.. ok we get it. They haven't seen each other since season 2. Now move on!
You ask "what plot" and that's precisely the point. Season 8 as it exists merely moves from major plot event to the next with little rising or falling action.. which is where GOT used to really thrive.
And once again, I'm not saying you're wrong about the problems with the show. But do you think it should take an entire season to do what you suggested? Do you think that it could be stretched over an entire extra season without losing quality (let alone the two and a half seasons I'm arguing can't be done)?
Let me ask you something, give me a summary of seasons 7 - 10 episode by episode which would end up with us in the same place. When you realise that by season 9 you're writing boring filler perhaps you'll understand why I'm saying that an episode or two in season 7 & 8 might have helped but 25 extra ****ing episodes would have been an even bigger disaster than what happened.
I think what people are longing for is subplot that develops the character arcs so that their choices in the final episode make sense. Dany is an obvious one. Throw in a few events where she starts making increasingly questionable decisions instead of just flipping the light switch.
To be fair, they did do that. The decision to kill Sam's father and brother, the execution of Varys, the point where she tells John she'll have to rule by fear instead of love, her argument that Cercei is using human shields and any of them she has to kill are dying for the glorious future she foresees. Now I fully agree they could have been done better and they could have been spread out more, but it's not like they didn't exist. Dany's sudden face-heel turn is actually explained in the episode itself. She hadn't been eating, she's grieving over the death of both of her best friends in a very short period of time, and she was left without her advisors (despite them actually pointing out they shouldn't leave her alone!). Yeah, I agree that it was poorly written but let's not act like it wasn't explained at all.
Had all that stuff been written in the same style as Season One, I doubt anyone would be complaining.