Campfire Lost Theories

I was camping this weekend with some friends and we started discussing some Lost theories. I thought I'd post some of them...

• My wife's cousin offered that the "smoke monster" was also the horse Kate saw, Jack's Dad, and possibly Hugo's imaginary friend Dave. After seeing the monster take the form of Eko's brother, this theory makes some sense. I hadn't thought of this before, and it blew my mind. It doesn't make any sense though that Locke's father was the smoke monster... so there's still some questions.
  
• My buddy thinks that other Losties will be able to glimpse the future (like Desmond did) and decide to stay on the island after "seeing" what the future holds. Jack's flash forward was the first of these insights. I don't know about this... I still like my Lost -> Dark Tower theory more. BTW, what will Desmond "see" now that Charlie is gone?
• There was a lot of talk about Jacob, Ben, and Locke. Could Ben ever hear Jacob? If not, how did he convince the Others he could? Can he still hear him? If not, what did he do to lose that ability? Did he hear what Jacob said to Locke? If not, why not? Crazy.
• Was there an orientation video in either the station Locke blew up (Flame) or the underwater station (Looking Glass)? I'd like to see those.
• At the end of the Season 2 finale we saw all the notebooks (presumably from the underground station) piled up. What was the purpose of that? Was it some sort of Dharma experiment on their own people.
• How has Richard Alpert not aged, but Ben has? Is Richard a smoke monster, a clone, was he part of some anti aging experiment (not likely since he wasn't Dharma - or was he former Dharma), or granted a "wish" from Jacob?
  

Anyway, we all agree that it stinks there won't be any answers to these questions until February.