CS' issue wasnt the char density, its that they kept adding new story ideas that just overlapped with no good reason besides "well, Rean was at the center at the time, and was a convenient choice to make everything connect"
Like, what do the Ashen Chevalier and the Sacrifice have to do with eachother besides they involve Rean? Like, they just settled on that link cause it was easy, no other chars needed to be involved for that to get screwed up! Xd