SPOILERS follow, in response to the Blair Underwood comments.
Guys, the whole dramatic tension of the entire series (as archaic as it now seems) is that good, stable relationships with good guys were out of reach for all the women, despite their differences, and primarily because all the women made all the wrong choices. And the ultimate happy ending for all of them was that they found some kind of stability.
Carrie was in a self-destructive, volatile relationship with "Big," and ultimately (in the series), the volatility settled and their rocky relationship reached an equilibrium. She blew through a lot of good and bad guys on the way. I *think* that Aidan (who the public ended up hating) and then Baryshnikov were meant to come across to viewers as "Mr. Perfect" for Carrie, as compared with Mr. Big, who was bad for her, so that viewers' expectations of who would end up being perfect for her would be overturned, but the public overall wanted her to be with Mr. Big the whole time, and so there really wasn't any perceived growth of Carrie's character. She and Big just resisted one another all along when they were meant to be together.
Miranda had a good guy available to her but she rejected him and treated him poorly, not wanting to settle, and she eventually ended up with the guy who was right for her (Steve) rather than the guy who was the best on paper (Blair Underwood). This paralleled her type-AAA lawyer-ness learning to chill out over time. That was her character growth. Blair Underwood would have slotted into the "living-by-checklists" Miranda before her personal evolution. Steve slotted into her "more-human-and-less-ambition" evolution.
Charlotte had the same journey, which paled in comparison to Miranda's, because who cared about Charlotte? But she was with the guy who was presented perfectly and had money, etc., and he turned out to be such a dud that she realized she loved a slimy, sloppy guy who was entirely wrong for her but who inexplicably turned her on.
And Samantha's personal growth was that she started off independent but still seeking male companionship and in the end she realized she was really happiest as her own companion.
All the women spent the whole series dreaming about finding Mr. Perfect and for all of them, their Mr. Perfect was all wrong on paper but somehow perfect for them. It's an obvious moral of the overall story, and if
