Kishimoto isn’t bad with romance, he’s inconsistent with romance. As Buddha said before the epilogue of Naruto feels (and probably is) an afterthought on Kishimoto’s side of things and I happen to agree. There were only a few romances he was consistent throughout the series and it seems outside of Shikamaru and Temari none of them are really… relevant going forward into Series III. 

It’s really frustrating because there were a lot of great hints of relationship development for Kishi to only throw it away in the end.