Did they drop something about Lori's backstory?

Excellent post, spot on. It's really hard to see them mess with the characters and setup like this. I so wish they kept the original show-runner. I think it was a BIG mistake in letting her go, and going in these new ridiculous directions and changing the characters, when it hardly makes sense.

I didn't know that about the different producers, but it makes sense given how they set up David's character to be this potential antagonist and Elizabeth as uncaring and incompetent to make us sympathize with Lori in spite of the fact that she kidnapped a child.

I really thought that Lori's motivation for taking Carter was going to be something different, like maybe her job as an in-home nurse enabled her to witness David or Elizabeth mistreating the girls, and she took her to get her away from some kind of abuse. To me, that is the only reason that could justify taking a child away from their family. I especially thought it was convenient that Elizabeth was a cop, which would have put her in a position to brush it under the rug if Lori ever reported it to the authorities before resorting to taking Carter. I could easily see David being abusive or neglectful to the girls when they were younger based solely on the reveal in the first few episodes that he was more focused on a big payoff than celebrating his kidnapped daughter being returned.

Based on Milena's interview, I can only see one way in which we might still sympathize with Lori about her motivation for kidnapping Carter. This is just out-there speculation and not a guess as to the direction of the show. Maybe Lori had a bad relationship with her mother, and that prompted her to become an egg donor. She felt like she wouldn't make a good mother because she didn't have an example of what that was, so she decided to help women who couldn't get pregnant on their own. Her mother, being old school religious, found out and brainwashed Lori into thinking that what she did was sinful, an abomination, maybe that she was going to hell for giving away her eggs. After enough brainwashing, Lori finally becomes convinced that her mother is right, and becomes overwhelmed with fear of being punished and guilt for her "sins." She feels like the only way to make things right is to reclaim the children that were conceived with her eggs. It doesn't even occur to her that what she's doing is kidnapping because of her mother's brainwashing.

This might seem somewhat crazy, but it would account for all of Lori's "in the eyes of God" dialogue in the season 2 opener. Lori never struck me as religious, and I think even Carter said they were never a church-going family. It would also explain why she agreed to donate her eggs in the first place, because otherwise, why would you agree to be an egg donor if you wanted to be a mother?