Sasuke should have died, I think the writer (kishi) didnt want to kill sasuke as it would one, hurt a lot of fans and two, destroy the possibilities of having future material ie animes, manga, movies, with sasuke thus hurt the writing and the popularity.
Having everyone revived would have been too much of a cop out as they already did that and other than Neji, no other major characters died, even though they really should have let Tsunade go aswell and maybe Orochimaru and Taka too instead of leaving them all absent in the end which is worse. Compared to during Pein where Kakashi died, Tsunade was almost dead, hinata was badly injured etc.
I hoped Sasuke would give up his eyes to Naruto and combine the indra and ashura spirits in one then it would make more sense for his sins to be pardonned if he gave up everything and died. I also didnt like how Sasuke all of a sudden had all these emotions for Naruto since they were children and suddenly loved Sakura aswell, this was never alluded to once in the series other than the final 2 manga chapters. He only loved itachi and the honor of the uchiha clan. All this jealousy and whatever he had for Naruto as a child doesnt even make sense as for a large part of his childhood, he wasnt alone, the clan was still there, yet it seems from like age 3 he and naruto were such good friends? why? and in the second last chapter?
I also wish Naruto could have actually really defeated sasuke and was able to walk away, similar to their first major fight at the end of part 1 where sasuke leaves, not that they are both basically equal. It would have been better to show that Naruto is definitively on top and has become stronger through his experiences with people instead of clinging to hatred like sasuke did. But instead they are just both lying half dead? Waiting for rescue?
I think keeping Sasuke alive was really just to keep options open for the future but really, his story was finished.
