Continuity integrity reestablished. Angus did come by the next day—we simply didn't see it. We were too busy watching Sven screw up murdering Hanners.
Yes, a lot simply means a quantity. It sometimes has a specific meaning, but said meaning is always circumstantial to what's being measured. Example: a lot of tiles and a lot of wood at a building supply store don't necessarily have anything to do with one another beyond the term itself. And if you'd read some limited-vocabulary schmoo writing it fifteen to twenty times in a thousand words when the bedamned wretch means many, you'd notice it, too.
<pauses to clean foam from mouth>
Even more fun, of course, is when they use alot, which isn't a word at all, or allot, which has an entirely different meaning.