I was really hoping that they wouldn't do anything that would undermine how well Clara's death worked for me, but I shouldn't have doubted.

I tend to agree with your point about the season not setting up the concepts as well as it could have done - the hybrid stuff very much went over my head until the last couple of weeks - but as an ending I found it pretty emotionally satisfying. (And it's always nice when they give people some more things to write fanfic about ;-D)