You know, if these "re-imaginings" (I hate that word... I think it's an oxymoron. Not criticizing you, Gothick) started with a page announcing, "This book takes place in Diagonal Time, reachable through a loose floorboard in Angelique's old room at the Old House", then fans might have no difficulty with any of it. The problem is, we'd never get to see Joan Bennett playing gun-toting (10+ years older) Liz, which was where the fun was in PT. If you just write it, without those actors, do you care about very different Liz?
This is a question I have about the new film, too. I can't get to see it yet. If you change everything and everybody around, that can be fun like PT was, but that worked when you had the same actors there to ground it all.