I'll move this here Stanny.

Firstly, I got the years wrong. The writers strike was through season 7, and that was the one that was great until about episode 11, after that the show finished off poorly as they had none of their regular writers.

Season 8 was only done to give a proper send off for characters leaving the show, Zach Braff was one of a couple that had other projects in the works. Season 8 was the end of Scrubs and most sitcoms have terrible final seasons.

ABC wanted to reinvent the show as something new which is why they tried Season 9 and turned it into a teaching hospital. They should have changed the name and made it clear that it was a spin off. They could have gotten an extra season or two out of it.