So I don't know about the extra people in the musicalbut Sutton Foster (the lead actress who was Kinky Boots) was the star of a failed ABC Family show Amy had made called Bun Heads. Sutton is probably a good friend of Amy's and Amy probably loves herhence Amy gave her the job. Amy and Dan had a lot of people in it because they liked them.
I agree about the swearing and the overall tone of the show being somewhat different. Of course the original had some language as wellLorelai had a mouth on her. I think Emily and Lorelai worked through things well in Fall. Some things should have been buried a long time ago. However I think Emily ultimately manipulated Lorelai to eventually go to therapy on her own and work on her own problems.
Luke has always been grumpy. It's part of why he needs Lorelai in his life. And she loves it. That's their whole opposites attract yin and yang thing.
I agree the fat comments were dumb. Although they always made fun of fat people. They watched a movie once called Fatso. They are size 4 girlies who can apparently eat an entire pizza each in one sitting and not gain an ounce but other women who eat are gross. It's also great when they sit down to an entire spread of junk food and eat a bite of food. Although Lauren and Alexis say as the years went on they would ask for spit buckets because it was gross to eat that much with all the takes they would do, in real life they didn't eat that way. I think they requested to not have to eat that much as the years went on. Don't forget Amy wrote these ladies to be beautiful, smart, witty, cultured, irresistible super eaters that never lose what they got.