Currently Airing Anime

 Spoiler

But Kyubey lied in the very same episode. Possible he's telling the truth, I'm just not placing 100% trust on what lies beneath his words. He comes off as some kind of used car salesman that's constantly trying to sucker his clients by hiding all the bad aspects about the cars he's selling and greatly emphasizing the pretty coat of paint. Then when the person's not dumb enough to make a decision right off the bat and bides his time a bit, he can see that the car has a ton of flaws to it. When the salesman realizes that the client knows the dirty secret behind the car, he throws in one final desperation act, which may be trying to appeal to pity by bringing up a story about his family being in need or some crap.

Kyubey's pretty much run out of options at this point. The only way for him to get Madoka to contract with him is to make her feel guilty, to throw pressure onto her. She's not going to take the deal for the shiny paint of coat anymore, because she knows just how bad the car is. So he's given up trying to sell the car to her, because it's a lost cause. Instead, he's trying to pressure her into buying through means that really have nothing to do with the car itself. The line he said to her when he left was enough to make me feel this way. He's basically stating that if she wants to wait around doing nothing while the universe is destroyed, then she can do that, but it'd be her fault when everyone reaches their end. That's a lot of weight to put onto the shoulders of a teenage girl that's had a lot of huge events happen to her in such a short time frame.

Also, I don't really see Kyouko's sacrifice as out of place or too surprising. Copying and pasting from what I posted elsewhere:


Kyouko found out the truth, that magical girls are witches. Ironically, her father was right about his insult, she's pretty much a baby witch. She realizes that if she wants to prevent herself from becoming a witch, she must kill witches, which she now knows are magical girls. She put on a tough girl act before, and said she'd kill Sayaka for getting in the way, but it really seemed more like she was trying to show Sayaka the ropes so that she doesn't end up getting herself killed.

Now she knows that no matter what she does, she'll turn into a witch eventually. So, her last hope was that seeing if it was possible to actually save a witch. When she saw that it was impossible to do so, she figured she might as well go out with a bang than live the rest of her life getting nibbled at by despair until becoming a witch.

She didn't want Homura to interfere. She didn't want to escape. She wanted it to end there.

It seems reasonable to me. I didn't find it too surprising or out of place to see her sacrifice herself. It wasn't because she wasn't strong enough to defeat Sayaka on her own without a FINAL BUSTER. I didn't feel it was out of some romance end, but I won't deny the possibility for those that want to see it that way. For all I know, it could be one of the many factors that contributed to her decision.

 Spoiler

Where was it that Kyubey lied in the episode? I think that now that he's been found out, he wants to disclose his true purpose to Madoka in a vain attempt to see if she will listen to his reasoning and logic, even though he knows from experience that this is not usually the case with teenage girls and she probably will not be swayed. I wouldn't think that Kyubey is that desperate (considering he doesn't possess emotions). He acts to conserve the energy balance in the universe, or whatever you want to call it, from a purely reasoned and logical standpoint of not wanting the world to end but has no emotional attachment to his cause, so I think it would follow that he would not take action of out desperation. He has even less reason for concern now that he believes Madoka will have to become a magical girl to stop the witch that comes on Walpurgis Night.
I agree that Kyouko's death wasn't a big surprise and was definitely not out of place, especially now after reflecting on what you said. I'd like to think that Kyouko was serious in her first fight with Sayaka and then started to care for her, when she saw her former self reflected in Sayaka, which is why she didn't want Sayaka to make the same mistakes that she did. I'm not some huge Sayaka x Kyouko shipper, but the silhouetted outlines of the two and Kyouko's final words to Sayaka saying that she didn't want her to be lonely being by herself definitely led me to believe there was something there. The things you mentioned definitely played a large role in Kyouko's decision, but I think the romance part was a factor as well.