Thanks for the great and detailed response :) I'm with you, I think it would distract if any of the pairings really became canon. One thing that's so great about CM is that it's so well balanced and if two characters got a romantic storyline, I think it would take away the spotlight from both the cases and the team to some extent? It just wouldn't fit.

Though there are times where I think that maybe there should actually be more outside the team significant others. I mean, ok, as much as we as shippers might loathe them because they might "get in the way", there a moment where it feels almost unrealistic to me that all these people would be this single at their age/level of pay/level of looks/level of intelligence.

But I love how good the show is about Reid/Morgan. I remember when I first peeked into the fandom it seems like everybody was shipping a combination of Hotch/Reid/Gideon, but to me it came out more and more that a lot of the good stuff was given to Reid/Morgan. Popular Kids being the first "major" one to me (as opposed to cute subtle subtext ones).

You bring up a really interesting point about Reid making assumptions about Morgan. I never really thought of that and how it might be a problem in a closer relationship. Interesting food for thought.