Anyone else find it interesting that the hostiles (our seemingly original "Others") could have had Ben as a kid, but instead opted to wait for him to be an adult first??? Nowadays it seems the big thing (at least since Danielle arrived) is that the Others take kids...

Makes me wonder how recent the birth issues came about...

I've been thinking about this too - I think the fertility problem occurred after the purge. Hence the need to take the kids.

What I'm wondering about is: now that the Hostiles are in control, and have access to the Dharma sub, food drops, communications, do they also have access to the Dharma assets off the island - the organizations/people/etc. who used to recruit people to "save the world?" And why are they (evidently) still recruiting? Juliet makes sense - Ben's fertility kick and all - but I don't think all of the Others are the original Hostiles. For example, I didn't see Tom, Bea, Mikhail, or Cindy in the shots of the Hostiles walking through the barracks. Or were there other people besides Richard that we recognized? Of course, the Others we know and love could have been off somewhere else...

They didn't take little Ben because they needed him to be their little spy. I'm sure he was getting Richard all kinds of information about Dharma over the years.