I think the original 1795 Barnabas (before the vamp thing) was a typical product of his time. He also had a terrific female influence in his life - his lovely mother Naomi. Barnabas may have lusted after Angelique but I believed he genuinely loved Josette as she really did represent many of the qualities of his mother, she was kind, gracious, somewhat immature but you could see the potential of a generous and gracious nature. Essentially Barnabas made the best decision and I never felt money or status influenced him that much though it's obvious Angelique had a tougher time of it than Josette did.
After recently watching the post Josette death and Barnabas' reaction I think he went somewhat mad with grief and probably guilt had much to do with it. Realistically, people often change after experiencing such trauma and it does seem that even with the vamp thing Barnabas probably never recovered from it. As a romantic, idealistic and sensual person and having felt Josette rejected him at the end his pursuance of innocent ingenue types, that always seemed very asexual to me, made sense. He did like and respect Vickie, and why not? she was a nice and respectable person. Maggie looked just like Josette so that was the story there. I never saw Roxanne. As much as I loath Julia Hoffman I have to admit it also makes sense Barnabas could have experienced some sort of sanity and peace in her company, maybe because she was so different from Josette. Josette should have been the one and that was the horrible tragedy of his life but he could exist, at least, with Julia Hoffman. My two cents.
