The whole deal about whether or not Depp will replace Frid is, by itself, an illogical argument. You can't replace another person. You can do work like they did, maybe copy the manner in which it was displayed, but that's it. Each work has to stand on its own.
Yeah, I think that you and I are in complete agreement about that. Yet, I do kinda see the argument in one regard- whenever there's been more than one portrayal of a character/story, whether it be Barnabas Collins or Hamlet, there is bound to be a discussion of who gave the "definitive" performance. And some will always have a specific person in mind as an answer: Jonathan Frid, Laurence Olivier, whatever. And they may fear that that definitive portrayal may be forgotten or diluted by someone else's portrayal. I can see where that is coming from, but I disagree- as you say, Nancy, each work can stand on its own and there can be more than one definitive performance, if they're both enjoyed. Or there can even be a definitive performance and an alternative version, if you will.
Regarding reviews, I don't mean to say that I am reliant on reviews of a film, but I don't totally ignore them either. I think of them as one of many tools to deciding whether a film interests me, others being the director, the cast, the genre, the story (including articles giving background on it), the trailer, etc. And often I am more interested in what the review actually says than whether it's positive or negative per se. When Roger Ebert was in his prime, I could usually tell from reading his reviews whether I would like a film or not, and not necessarily from the grade he gave it. But he would always give enough interesting points pro or con that I could decide whether those points were things that were important to me or not. Nowadays, I find his reviews less helpful than I used to, though I still read them. And there are others that I do find useful. All this said, I'd rather see a film I want to do well with fresh reviews rather than rotten ones!