I loved that virginity/innocence on this show isn't about whether you've had sex, but whether you've killed. That's a much more important watershed in one's life.

Totally!

About subtext becoming text -- I know there are some die-hard anti-shippers out there who argue that they were still "just friends", and we don't see them having sex or straight-up making out (at least not without some thin excuse like "Xena needs someone to put water in her mouth"). But, well, it's hard for me to make a case without spoilers, but basically I feel like you have to have your head way up your ass to not see them as a couple in S6.

Or I suppose one could argue that they are in love but don't have sex. I would disagree with that person, but I'd concede that they might not have their head up their ass/be a homophobe -- depending on their basis for that argument.

They are canonically in love, and life partners, and it's even more explicit than in earlier seasons.

A lot of the stuff you disliked about S4 does continue -- the Amazons are still a projection of white Hollywood's idea of indigenous people, and the Christian subtext also becomes very near text in S5. (I don't remember if you had criticized that specifically, but IIRC in your tightpresent request you said you dislike tropes that present Christianity or Christian themes & tropes as Truth, and S5 definitely does that.) I don't recall anything as racist as the India episodes, though I very well may be forgetting something right now.