BEN KNEW ALL ALONG

the new crew was there to protect ben and make sure it all happened. I dont think jacob divulged all the details for the plan to work. Knowing what will happen skews the perspective of the person attempting to ensure or change the path ie the variable.
I like the what about you... maybe this is jacobben code for i want you to stab me as hard as you can. The concept of ben being on a longcon makes sense, if it was all made up then why make up a this invisible guy hates technology rule? I think that alex saying you cant kill locke may have been just the smokemonster attempting to ensure that jacob got killed. If it had been jacob and all this was planned then why would ben be thinking of killing locke again. He would have to know it wasnt alex since the only time this discussion takes place is after the smoke monster appears and before it leaves. Or maybe he took a bit of that trusty 'truth serum' and was in touch with his spirit guide.

MrWidmore - This would be cool. I do believe that Jacob knew that MM was up to something, from the start, with Locke and using Ben as his counter strategy would be brilliant. I also think MM was so tied up in his moves that he didn't realize that Jacob had caught on to him. MM even says "you don't know what I went through..."in a rather smirk way.

Analogous to a chess game (which we see an awful lot) - when you think you have a no-lose strategy you can get so focused on your moves that you miss the fact that your opponent has figured out your plan and has developed a strong counter plan. You ignore their moves and strategy and then BAM, next thing you know you are on the defensive or worse, you LOSE.

And, this idea is out-of-the-box enough to be a good LOST twist. If nothing else, we are continually thrown twists to which I think almost all of say "what the $%^& just happened????!!!.