Yeah. I admit I never went to the trouble of really getting good information about contracts (and maybe there is none to have), but that whole fandom is one huge wankfest so there was everything from "they all hate each other" to "if it wasn't for the fans, they'd have fired Misha long ago". So... I have no idea what's going on and why it is the way it is.

I did watch some of the early season 10 episodes (my watching of SPN is all over the place!)

10x05? I admit I'm a sucker for all their "drop the fourth wall" episodes. That one was so good.

I much prefer him in scenes where he gets to play off Dean and Sam

Yeah, me, too.