But to have them completely vanish? That's a bit inexcusable.

Agreed - as usual, my fingers went a bit faster than my brain. :-) It's just not a pet peeve of mine - if I notice it in an otherwise good story, I'll just shrug and keep going. Whereas Mushpuppy Canderous will make me hit the back button at something approximating the speed of light. :-)

And there are no words for how much Goto annoys me. I could, however, start at "boring, sanctimonious, and useless in combat" and work up from there.