Island Underwater & Daniel/Des Sideways Convo = Red Herrings? by Tone Space

This is my first theory.It's actually more of a question that I have an answer to that I'm not totally sure about.
Were they red herrings?

By "they", one instance takes us to the season 6 opener when we first see the island underwater in the flash sideways.
Accepting the notion that the flashsideways was a world created by the losties as a waiting world to the afterlife, look at when the island was underwater.

It was shown from no person's perspective, but just the way it was.
It didn't present itself as something the characters created since it was shown that way to the viewers only.
The best explanation I have for that is that it was a red herring to throw us off and keep the finale's twist of what the flash sideways was.
But while I type this, I'll propose an objective possibility.Maybe the losties who collectively created this world; collectively desired to put the island behind them..thus created the reality of it being underwater..but being that the island was their most important place of significance..that might not make much sense.
The second considered red herring that I think Darlton might have thrown us..was when Daniel was conversing with Desmond..and said that he thought that he might have created the world that they exist in after detonating a hydrogen bomb.He basically said that it was an alternate reality..as opposed to the limbo or waiting room of the afterlife that they existed in..so again..that would throw us off of thinking of the world as being such.
So, I'm not totally convinced that we were being fed red herrings by these two examples.But I think that they are points that I can't make total sense of after finding out what that world really is.
I'd love to know what you guys think and if anyone has an explanation for these two instances, and any others that may not mesh well with the limbo world.
Thanks :)