What I'm trying to say is that it's not really a "plot hole" at all the way BioWare chose to handle it, just a different fundamental understanding of "episodic" storytelling. I can't really explain it any better than I have, but it works much better than you might think.

As I see it, they've already written themselves into the trap by creating entirely too many details that fans see as "immutable" because of X quest or Y quest, and it's ultimately stifling the possible directions they can take the story in if the only options are "preserve" or "require." To me, there's a bunch of tension already lost when they try to set up something big if it can't be that big.

You certainly seem to think I'm in the "let's kill Nanamo" camp, but I'm not. I don't want anyone to die, but I also don't want the "major change" to Ul'dah to ultimately result in nothing more than a few tweaked lines of dialogue before and after, because then it's like nothing has really changed at all.