I still think Michael wasn't there because he was, for some reason, trapped on the island as a whisperer. He's the island whisperer, LOL. But yeah, he told Hurley that's what the whispers were, so I guess for some reason he didn't get to move on?
You do know that the whispers in the jungle were originally intended to be the "Others", right? Lindelof et.al. admitted as much, and the "purgatory whisperers" who are trapped on the island are just a last-minute retcon. (Which, by the way, turns out to be quite problematic :
Michael pretty much redeemed himself on the freighter, much more so than, say, Ben Linus ever did. So in terms of "cosmic justice", the self-sacrificing Michael would be far more likely to make it to the Big Finish than the unabashed murderer Ben, whose contribution to his redemption on several counts of premeditated murder pretty much amounted to saying "I'm really sorry."
And then, there's the whole question of Christian Shepard being "explained away" as the MiB-impersonator: remember the moment Michael died on the freighter, beyond the island's perimeter? Do you remember who appeared to him there, announcing: "You can go now"?
Well, the MiB couldn't leave the island, nor was Michael in the Flash-Sideways-Purgatory.
Those who still insist that the creators *do* have all the answers engage in wishful thinking, IMHO. I still think that the whole thing just became too large to contain for them, and NOT on account of unanswered questions, but on account of the *answered* ones.
Let's look at the numbers once more: the problem with the numbers isn't the mysteries, it's the explanations offered.
1. The numbers were broadcasted by a Dharma station and appeared on the Hatch. They also happened to be the code to the emergency system that prevented a new incident. (And that's a NICE mystery there! I really liked it.)
2. These numbers cause some weird fluctuations in probability, attracting money and misfortune in equal measure. (Still no complaints from me: it just adds to the mystery behind it all.)
Now, here's the explanations offered by the creators:
a) The numbers are coordinates Jacob penned down while looking for potential candidates. (Still pretty mysterious, and certainly offering a lot of potential in terms of the whole fate vs. coincidence-theme.)
b) The candidates weren't really special; they were just people whose lives sucked sufficiently to make guardianship of the island look like a genuine improvement. (And here's where the coordinate-numbers lose their significance: they were just random numbers pointing to random people with somewhat broken biographies.)
c) The randomly picked candidates could be put on or off the list on account of their background: if their lot improved, they were crossed out - but at the same time, they could be back on the list if they "wanted in". (So in the end, the numbers mean less than squat.)