<p>I offer two original (like i came up with them…while dreaming last night O_O haha) theories.</p>
<p>1) The old/ancient Saito that Cobb met when washed ashore touched Cobb’s totem, and thus the totem lost its uniqueness since nobody’s supposed to touch it. So it really isn’t a reliable way to measure if we’re in a dream anymore, and so we shouldn’t be placing so much emphasis on it anyway. But since we are, and Saito’s the one who touched it, maybe Saito really “honored the agreement” in the end by trapping Cobb in Limbo with his children, although in real life both their bodies were lost?</p>
<p>2) Mal was really right; Cobb died by drowning in the van, but he was actually in a dream, so when he died he “woke up” and found his kids etc, then after the movie ended we don’t see Mal serving him a sandwich that she just made (it was only a few minutes prior that she herself woke up from having committed suicide so she didn’t miss much)</p>