You guys are completely missing the whole point of A3.
The idea was to set Ripley in a world devoid of everything she took for granted and make her confront her destiny.
No children.
No family.
Just her accepting her fate, that she had to be become what she most feared and sacrifice herself.
What would she do with a crippled Hicks and a screaming daughter? It would either be more of the same (i.e. inept CM's running around getting killed) or it would have to take place a bunch of years later and then how do you bring the aliens back? Have her go on another mission? That would be silly.
I do believe that A3 was a good ending to the story.
A:R was just unnecessary. There's interesting ideas there, but it just didn't work.