But to a lot of people, the situation was shown as radically different - where they seemed to be in CoE was actually less developed than it had become in season two, I thought, even if the development in season two was subtle hints.

I've read people saying that that, but didn't see it myself. Maybe because I always felt that there were so many issues to be addressed that at one point they'd have to sit down and actually talk about it, with words, before you could call it a relationship.