User blog comment:The Milkman/Indoctrination Theorists Say the Darndest Things, Part II/@comment-1683278-20121205235312/@comment-1683278-20121206003332

1) Because Pre-EC, people were mad about the lack of closure in the original endings (for good reasons). Because the endings were originally so bad, people felt as if they'd been ripped off with an unfinished story. It felt like nothing mattered because the endings were bad, and the closure to the trilogy was broken.

2) The ending choices aren't that bad, and they are pretty different from each other. Regardless of the fact that there are only four choices, the number doesn't really matter. The outcomes were different, and from the overall story standpoint, the galaxy experienced a mass effect as a result of player choice.