On wikipedia it said for The Gift that Dark Willow was originally planned to bleed Dawn. How would that have worked out?
There have been lots of rumors about how Season 5 was supposed to have ended. According to the most popular one, Glory's brain-sucking Tara was supposed to send Willow off the deep end, after which Dark Willow would take on Glory and Buffy, and their battle would end up sucking Sunnydale into the Hellmouth. Now, how much of that was ever actually planned, how much was just kicked around as a possibility, and how much was just wild-ass guesswork on the part of fans is anybody's guess.
wasn't Dawn and Anya originally supposed to die in 'The Gift'? i read somewhere, i think it was in one of the Watcher Guide's, that one of the scripts for S5's finale got leaked, so they had to do a major rewrite, which resulted in Buffy dying in Dawn's place. maybe thye originally had Willow going evil, but who knows?
I would imigaine though that the whole battle devouring Sunnydale wouldnt have worked out as good as what we got and was probably not the format because Joss said had the WB not want to budget cut the show he wouldnt have been so harsh about the ending. The one you said was even harsher than Buffys death. There would have been alot to clean up in season 6.