*MCU SPOILERS AHEAD*
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The MCU is one of the largest franchise in this millenium. With Avengers: Endgame (2019) at the top of the Box Office of All Time, and many of Hollywood's biggest stars earning their fame via roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are tons of fans of this Series of shows and movies. One thing that makes any Marvel product so fascinating to watch, is the story interweaved within all of it. Agent Coulson of SHIELD is linked to Spiderman. Daredevil aka Matt Murdock is linked to the Big Six Avengers.
Currently, I am taking on the task of watching the entire MCU, including the ABC Shows Agent Carter & Agents of SHIELD, but excluding the Netflix Marvel Shows. In the least, it is extraordinary how a small remark that a character makes in one movie, has a lot to do with multiple characters from a different film or series.
At the end of SHIELD S2:E19, Coulson is in a meeting with Agent Hill, and he finishes with something along the lines of, "It's time to bring in the Avengers." This particular episode is the last before the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron. A the beginning of the movie, the opening scene, the Avengers are storming their way into a HYDRA base, which we know has direct links to Coulson's meeting, because during his chat, they talk about retrieving Loki's Sceptre, which we see in the movie as the initial aim of the Avengers.
However, the agents at SHIELD have stormed multiple HYDRA bases, ending with success in many. So, the question is, hypothetically, couldn't SHIELD have taken out the task that the Avengers did in the start of the movie? Now, I'm not saying in any way that the 2 powers are equal, because the Avengers would overpower SHIELD any day, even with Quake's/Daisy's abilities. But, the adversity faced at the base was quite similar, it seems, to what SHIELD had faced too many times to count. Even with the Maximoff Twins, SHIELD've gone up against many Inhumans, for example, and other powered individuals.
Of course, a simple answer could be that SHIELD just wanted the Sceptre as soon as possible, with as minimum obstacles as possible. Coming out of the fictional world: it may just have been something to add to the plot of Age of Ultron, to make it gripping right from the go, and something to entice fans of the ABC Series to watch the movie. Obviously, they'd want to find out what the Coulson comment meant, when he talked about bringing 'in the Avengers', adding more cash to the actors' and filmmakers pockets, at the end of the day.
Then with SHIELD vs Hive, the Avengers could've been brought in, to fight someone who was more or less is invincible. Just think how much more quickly Hive could've been dealt with, if even only a third of the Big Six came to help. Maybe not even they were needed; Dr Strange + Black Panther? Captain Marvel + Black Widow? Or even Captain Marvel by herself? Exiting fiction, this could've obviously been again for commercial gain, to drag S3 on for as long as possible against a formidable opponent.
An additional reason for not entwining SHIELD and the Avengers, further than has been already, would supposedly be because the AoS bosses wanted to go their own route from the MCU; not completely separate, but to release the 'strangle-hold' for the scriptwriters, which had previously meant that lost of thought had to be put in so as not to majorly contradict the main MCU storylines, prevalent in the movies.
So personally and ultimately, I believe that the SHIELD Agents & the Avengers are indeed interchangeable, however a few fictional factors (such as the least use of SHIELD resources as possible) and non-fictional ones (like the aim to actually have feasible material to make blockbusters with, instead of all the good stuff being taken up by the ABC series), mix together and come into play, giving us the current extraordinary layout and timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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