Ok, I was doing some random reading on Lostpedia and something jumped out to me.
I went in search of the page on "Annie"-- the little girl who is young Ben's girlfriend at Dharma. I went to her page and came across this line:
Annie is Kate. Kate used the alias "Annie" in one of her cons.
Wow!!!!
On a show that is so precise about most things, can it be a coincidence that Kate used the name "Annie" as an alias when she was on the run in Australia? Could it be the producers trying to throw a curve at us or does it actually mean something?
I dunno the answer, but that would be very interesting. Consider that Annie and Kate do have similar looks (long brown hair, roundish face, brown eyes). Granted the traits they have are very common, but if Ben's Annie was blondish or blue-eyed it would run this theory out.
Obviously, there are time problems with Kate being Annie-- not least among them the fact that Ben is now considerably older than Kate (if he was younger, this would work nicely because time seems to pass slower on the island). Still, the show and the island seem to have varrying definitions of how time works. Maybe Kate is Annie reincarnated or something wild like that.
I'd rate this theory well below my "most folks get to the island via the Looking Glass station and then take the sub from Looking Glass to the dock" theory in terms of my condfidence in it-- but still, it is worth pondering.
By the way, my favorite current theory is that Richard is one of the crew of the Black Rock. Oh, and I have backed off the Jacob is the captain of the Black Rock theory. I think the Black Rock was captained by Magnus Hanso, Alvar Hanso's great-great-great-grandfather (or something like that).
-Jason "is it freaking Wednesday yet?!?!" Evans