I think the show did much, much better with showing how important they are to each other before all the saccharine and flat romance started flowing (at least when you ignore the odd fits and starts of Nathan's attitude towards Duke, which, wtf, still no explanation for that).

Yeah, I would be totally on-board with a non-romantic OT3; in fact, I would welcome it more than a romantic version, considering how badly this show does with romance. It'd have to be totally non-romantic, though, and not Audrey+Nathan in boring eternal!luv with Duke the odd man out, playing support team.

And that's the problem, IMO. It'd be hard to go back to pre-romance times. Jennifer could be written out easily enough, but the Audrey+Nathan thing?