Hot Head Ben

I don't buy that.  As a community theatre guy and a would be writer, having limited resources only forces you to get more creative.

I've said a few times over the years, and maybe the initial setup and transition would be cost prohibitive, but I think from a set perspective they would tremendously benefit from going the Scrub route for filming production.  Admittedly, it would also require them to change from the static three camera filming format and maybe get more creative with that, but overall I think it would work.

The way the show Scrubs did it was to use an abandoned hospital, which they used for everything - not only was it their hospital set, they created their apartment sets, a lot of other internal and short sets, their production offices and dressing rooms.  Scenes shot in the parking lot were the actual exterior of the building.
Imagine if Days did something like that; and then built essentially a garden on the roof to shoot their outdoor park scenes.  They could do so much without ever going more than 10 yards from their "studio".

And as for the stories themselves, what they've come to now is taking the novel stories of 30-40 years ago and boiled them down to such a condensed, inane and tired consistency, that there's no substance to what's happening.  It's like flyboyla said, where all we see Ciara and Ben do is have sex and take showers together.  You have all these people sitting around talking endlessly about how strong two peoples love is. You can't even narrow down any one character who's had that conversation or about who, because they've all had it about one another half a dozen times (just this month, probably)
I keep coming back to the core failure of the show, which is the fact that they have characters who are doctors and lawyers and police officers and powerful business executives and international spies and mob bosses; and the thing they choose to focus on are baby switches and... I don't know, unemployment sex?  I kind of had to wrack my brain what else is actually going on right now.  
Sure, there are some stories that have potential, like Will and Sonny wanting to have another child or even Stefano extending his life with technology; which I think is an interesting concept and always thought it to be the natural evolution of his experiments with Ralph recreating Gina in Hope.  But to do that so he can chase after 72 year old Marlena?  Seriously, after 35-40 years and a second life, he can't move on?  I mean, she looks good for her age; enough even that I was actually a little surprised that Deidre Hall is in fact over 70, but come on.

This is supposed to be "days" of our lives, so for one thing, they need to pick up the fucking pace instead of having days drag on for weeks at a time.  Do you remember back when they used to promote the show as "miss a day, miss a lot"?  They also have to stop being so myopic and self-interested in their personal lives and balance that out with other thing.  Show Rafe, Lani or Eli on a case, have Kayla see a patient - who she isn't fucking related to - who has a challenging illness she has to diagnose and treat; and maybe they recover, maybe they don't.  Put John in charge of Salem based ISA team and send them on wild missions; even some of their destinations look suspiciously like the Sony backlot, at least it might be something mildly interesting.  The important thing would be to find a balance between the different facets of their lives; because the weight of a tough police case or medical case, especially one that doesn't have a happy ending, effects the protagonists involve and informs their lives outside their job, their personal relationship, finding strength in some, deteriorating others.  Look at medical professionals right now, it's a macrocosm of what they do even in the best of times; the commitment required, the time away from their families, the personal risk of potentially being exposed to something that might not only endanger their own health, but potentially their family too.

And then there's the family aspect of the show that is so underplayed these days.  The relationship drama is entirely who's wants to sleep with; arguably at times less tawdry than that, but still essentially the core premise.  We have the Hope and Jennifer cousin dynamic, which is something that grew more out of convenience when they eventually became one of the few adults with Horton ties on the show; and Abigail and JJ had a good sibling bond, but they play so loose with the family connections, which I think would help ground the show and bring it back to its roots.  Once upon a time it the show was about Tom and Alice Horton and their family; and for the most part it's okay that's branches out so much, but it's also lost some focus, because now it's now about so many people who are kind of loosely connected; some by blood, some because their families are friends.  And of course, everything that happens in town (which varies in size from a quaint, small, small town; to a sprawling metropolitan city, with a horizon of skyscrapers) only happens to these people and caused by these people.  The car accident that killed Adrienne wasn't a bad story concept, but it was totally unnecessary to have the person responsible someone we know; whether Will, Maggie or as it'll probably eventually turn out to be, Summer.  I mean, what the odds?  Just have it be some random person who was either careless or caused the accident through no fault of their own, because they lost control of the car or something.
It's same issue I took with Chelsea causing Zack's death, which I still maintain all these years later that they pretty much established within the show that she couldn't have actually done, but never acknowledged; because they said her car was reported to be a mile away from the scene, before it was towed to Max's garage.  They showed her stop almost instantly after hitting whatever it was she hit.  That's a not insignificant distance travel between point A and point B, even if she was traveling 70 mph.  In the town where I live a mile would take you about half way across town.
But I digress...