Musings on plotpoints
Firstly: Barbossa (duh).
I hold that he was Captain of his own ship before he ever mutinied on Jack and had a long and illustrious career. Although the impression given is that anyone can be a pirate lord, all of them are great and revered and notorious Captains of ships and "empires" as it were. Jack comments that Sao Feng just "gave the title away" to Elizabeth. Therefore, it stands to reason that Barbossa's history includes a wondrous amount of glory we have not been privvy to, and that being Jack's first mate was a definite demotion, for reasons unknown. We know that he sailed with Morgan for ten years, at least, he Captained the Black Pearl for ten years - did Morgan perhaps make him a pirate lord? I think Barbossa was enormously experienced even before he took over TBP; the crew would have to have had faith in his ability to actually lead them as a Captain.
Moving on:
What happened between Beckett and Jack?
What happened between Sao Feng and Jack?
What happened between Davy Jones and Jack?
What happened between Tia Dalma's and Singapore?? I want to know how the relationship between Barbossa and the others was soothed, as it were. And who does Will think he is, being so disrespectful to Barbossa throughout, although Barbossa is eons more experienced and knowledgeable than Will? Acede to your superiors, young Turner!
How did Barbossa become a pirate lord? What is Barbossa's history? Where has he been? What adventures has he had? What things has he seen? So much hinted at in "a captain who knows those waters" and then DENIED! Where is the hedonist from the first film, the one who lusts and hungers after great food, wine and women? Well, he was there, but we need more of him!
Jack, for that matter - he seems a bit ridiculous to have been taken seriously by anyone to become a pirate lord.
The Black Pearl - all that stuff was hinted at about its mysterious past and then DENIED!
Tia and Barbossa!
I think the next film has to be a Jack and Barbossa film in which all these questions are answered. Ditch Will and ditch Elizabeth, keep in the kewl secondary characters (Pintel, Ragetti, Gibbs, Mullroy, Murtogg, Cotton, Marty, etc), include a bit more of the pirate lords and just follow those two in a race to reach the Aqua de Vida. Neither of them should die, neither of them should be made to look ridiculous (well, anymore than Jack already is) and both should be given full due with plenty of screen time, epic sword fights, and salty wenches. Maybe Calypso can come back. EDIT: Also, I think they should go with GR's suggestion that Barbossa and Jack fight over the same girl and Barbossa ends up with her. :D
Speaking of which, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but they did rather capture the flighty, unreliable nature of ancient deities rather well, I thought.
Imagine the pain of going from being a mighty Goddess, at absolute one and in tune with nature, part of it completely, able to move through it and with it, to being completely cut off from it, isolated from it, reduced to a mere mortal. It would be agony. This was the nature of the ancients, they were enraptured with their elements, truly that was their first loves, and to be cut off from their passion was too horrible for them to bear. That came through, I think, in what few words Tia was given.
They were beings of enormous emotion, that veered from one extreme to the other. They loved and hated with equal intensity and acted on their feelings without even a second thought. They were fickle and played with the lives of men as games. They were constantly falling in love with mortals and yet were entirely self-serving. They would take a mortal they loved and place them in the sky as a constellation, say, without asking the mortal if that was agreeable to them but simply because they wanted to be able to look at the mortal always...
Yet they could also have incredible compassion for mortals (evident in Tia's 'they should be in the care of Davy Jones' and the intense emotion in her voice) and be very generous and kind to them...
... more often though they were out to serve themselves.
And when Tia says 'is my nature', I dont' find it inadquate at all, I think it is entirely appropriate. It's the truth. You find many Goddesses of that sort throughout many mythologies. Truth is, when you have lived for thousands of years, ten years is the blink of an eye. It's not such a big deal. When you have endless time to see the one you love, one day in every ten... so what? For Calypso it might've even been a funny little amusement for her... for when she was still Calypso, at any time she could've preserved Davy's life, or done with him what she will, so missing one day... not such a big deal. It was only when she became trapped that it would've been problematic to her. Of course, Davy, having a mortal history and mortal emotions and a mortal perspective on things, would not have seen it that way at all. What is cruel trickery and betrayal to mortals is merely fun and games to gods.
Calypso is the goddess of concealment, by the way, of concealing one's true purpose, and a naiad.
Interestingly enough, in my fanon, Barbossa has had a fling with Circe, a similar goddess in some ways, and both she and Calypso had it off with Odysseus.