A. yes, that was crap.

B. I get that there are negative effects to being in a bad relationship with the editors and managers, but I'd like to hear specifics (even if just rumors) about how they 'destroy him'..
did they change the rankings? I never followed those rankings, and I still thought Bleach was a horrible mess.
did they cut his assistants roster? take away the good ones and hire new ones every month?
did they push extra (uncredited and unpaid) work on him?
did they tell him to drop the last plot twist he wrote and redo something from two months ago?

I can't say anything about the first few, because i hate inside information about these stuff, but about the story? It's still very much Kubo's style, just that his style has grown stale and it's the fifth time we saw every twist.

and considering the fight between Ichigo and jehova has been on for about 10 chapters before the 'three weeks left!', I'm guessing that either was more than 3 weeks, or that the editors saw what he had in plan and said 'no, that's too much. this is as close as you ever was to having a finale, finish it".