I always wished they gave him a better reason in the scripts! ASH wanted to leave and there were lots of ways to do it without undermining the character and is relationship. I always thought he might want "retraining" because he felt he had failed his Slayer in some way by not being a typical Watcher. She died and he didn't want to lose her again thus a trip back to "school". Instead they had him clearly dump MORE responsibility on the already overburdened girl and he was never the same .

Love your icon.....wonderful smile on that man.

Kathleen