Well, I think the best example from OMWF is Xander's summoning Sweet. I had trouble with it for years, before it hit me rather suddenly recently that Joss was "serious" in the commentary when he says, "Just because it was fun." The whole episode is artifice anyway, and artifice that produces strong emotional reaction (and there are PUPPETS! walking, almost singing puppets!); I think Joss couldn't help himself at letting us see the puppeteer’s strings there a bit. And how meta is it that Xander, who is the "ordinary guy" and often the viewer representative, is the one who summoned the demon (WE wanted this to happen!--and we brought doom upon our characters for inviting Joss to our town, and we still didn’t shut off the set!), and then regretted it? Suddenly the fact that Xander waited on this piece of information while people were dying makes sense: it's just a show. The way Joss plays with this cognitive dissonance (it's just a show, and it's emotionally true, and it's distancing, and...) is mind-boggling. And the weird fact is that it WORKS--people are angry about Xander summoning Sweet but OMWF still gets regularly voted the best episode ever, even though almost no one has been able to explain this in a nemotionally credible way (besides, “Xander’s a horrible person with no conscience,” which, while one possible interpretation, isn’t I think the ‘correct’ one)

How did I do with my Stormwreath impression?

It was very good! I actually do agree with the fourth-wall breaking stuff--it was basically the first thing I noticed. Angel rationalizing makes sense, but still doesn't flow well--but that may be the point. To expand on your Will/War point: Willow and Warren also fulfill similar roles in Buffy's and Twilight's camps, and are parallels for each other in different ways (Warren is Willow's dark side, and Willow is...well, Warren is almost all dark side, so I don't know what Willow is to Warren). So there's a lot of meat there, and I don't just mean Warren himself. My point is more that you can’t just say that the story works without appealing to somewhat tortured rationalizations or self-preferentiality. Which is fine--I’m (after several years!) actually kind of okay with Xander summoning Sweet in the narrative and I could see Twilight going this way too. (Though I really don’t think Twilight is ever going to be an OMWF-type favourite.)

I have to go meet a friend. Will reply to other comment soon!