Yeah, that whole original ending pissed me off too. And they try to cop out with 'that was the original ending we had in mind at the beginning". Well great, that'd work if the show got cancelled after a couple seasons but they wrote themselves away from that over 9 seasons and their characters grew past where that ending made sense. Barney grew to be a better person for Robin. Ted literally let Robin float away like a balloon, and they developed a wonderful, platonic, friendship. So if they did want to keep their original ending, they shouldn'tve written themselves away from it so hard.