where are they now?

so last night's episode was quite interesting. whatever john locke did by turning the wheel stopped all the flashes. since the flashes stopped that means that whatever point in time they are in is where they will now stay. they realize later in the episode that they are in the 70s when the dharma initiative was still living there. they flip back and forth between 3 years of time, which is how long it has been since the others left the island. sawyer is now head of the dharma initiave, behind the guy with long hair, and has moved on with his life. all the survivors left have now integrated themselves into the dharma community and sawyer makes the main focus to find the others when they come back. sawyer ends up falling in love with juliet, which i totally called as soon as kate left. the others end up returning to the island at the end of the episode which does not really make sense to me because they are like 30 years or more behind in time. when sawyer sees kate he is taken aback which makes me really mad because kate just got back with jack the night before they came back to the island. will locke ever be able to find them and is he not dead anymore? and whats the deal with ben and why has daniel gone crazy??