I do agree that as the Collective was easily the New Avengers' best enemy, its a shame that he and Alpha Flight were essentially wasted on the "Xorneto" mess-terpiece. I stick with my earlier idea that had all that "ambient mutant energy" had gone into a mutant AVENGERS foe, specifically Whirlwind (basically turning him into a god-like being), the Collective probably would have been more exciting.
Y'know what's funny? Bendis and Joe Q claim whenever they want to defend someone who wants to skirt over continuity (at least in the 1-2 years before they decided that continuity is vital, but only for a 70 chapter crossover event) that "too many comic writers get into the trap of explaining and explaining, rather than just write a story". Well, what it is this time, gang? What excuse from the House of Ideas will it be now?
Has Bendis and NA fallen into the "trap"? Or are you going to pretend your last statement didn't exist and defend how brilliant it is? Like O'Brien stated, the fact that Joe had to go on Newsrama to explain it (again) is rather telling.
I'm tempted to paraphrase the Joker from Paul Dini's MAD LOVE:
"If you have to EXPLAIN a story, there IS no story!"