Vicki was found in the winter, hence her last name, so winter in New York, it's hard to imagien the scen without it being bitter cold, snow coming down hard and fast, a teary eyed Elizabeth watching from around the corner to make sure baby Victoria was taken in.
It is worth noting how old Liz was at the time. A woman in her 30's, before she married in the 1940's, a very different time, unforgiving of a woman who had a child out of wedlock, and the stigma of bastard would have marked Vicki all her life if the truth were known. She may have belived that Vicki would be quickly adopted. And why wasn't Vicki adopted?
 I think the social stigma and family honor alone would hav ebeen reason enough to giv eup a baby, but this is DS. Who knows what sort of villain or monster Vicky's father was. For all we know Liz may have discovered her lover had sworn to sacrifice his first born to the Devil.
As for Liz seeming to be on the verge of firing Vicki early in the series...my take on that was that Liz was getting cold feet about bringing Vicki into the family and was overwhelmed with how persistant Vicki was in seeking out the truth of her past, and how close Vikci was getting to the truth. Her anger and willingness to fire Vicki could have stemmed from her own fear of having her secrets exposed. We saw later how far she'd go when Jason McGuire blackmailed her.

I have read that DC was in negotiations with AM to return during the Leviathons story, so the events that happened there may have been intended for a re-do of Barnabas rescuing her as he did in 1796. AM ultimately didn't return so that storyline was dropped.
So it's possible that DC didn't intend to leave Vicki's fate as it was. I prefer to think it happened that way. And with all the time travel in DS I like to think Vicki was saved later. I'm hoping that someday Big Finish can get Alexandra to return and do some audio plays as Vicki! Maybe they'll even do a time travel story to another time period and finally let AM play a villain like she wanted. Parallel Time Vicki maybe?

Vicki was only written out into the past becasue AM's recast hadn't worked out. The "91 series if it had continued would probably not have written Vicki out, instead, Vicki would have probably replaced Maggie in the following storyline remakes of 1897, Leviathons, Paralell Time, etc.
Also, as the Barnabas/Vicki romance was much more important in the remake, I doubt the Jeff/Vicki romance would've gone s deep as it did in the original. It's all specualtion of course.
Wouldn't it have been great to see Joannna Going as the bitchy Kitty Soames? I could cry just thinking how wonderful Barbara Steele would have been as Magda.

I've read a fan fiction where an amnesic Vicki is sent thru time and becomes Liz and Roger's mother. I thought there was a lot of irony there, given Vicki's obsession with her ties to Collinwood. That same story also had Liz being Vicki's mother in a perplexing paradox.
A different fan fiction had Beth Chavez's little sister married to Jamison. That was one pretty disturbing as she had a psychotic hatred of Beth ( who she strongly resembled) , Jamsion had never gotten over his crush of Beth and married the sister because of the resemblence. Beth's sister had killed several infant daughters because they looked like Beth, and only allowed Liz to live because she didn't look like Beth. Jamsion insisted on naming his daughter Elizabeth after Beth.
The show gives us so little information on that time period that there's no real way to know much "canon" info about her. If I were writing a story I'd be tempted to make her Laura Stockbridge lol.

I had heard a theory a long time ago that Betty was Jameson's illigitimate daughter, and that Paul and Betty were Vicki's parents, making Liz  the aunt of Vicki. Liz then sent monthly checks for Vicki's care out of guilt after she thought she killed Paul.
It's an interesting theory, but it doesn't have any real emotional pull on me the way Liz as Vicki 's mother does. The evidence on the show is inconclusive, but between teh evidence in Dreams of the Dark and Return to Collinwood, the opinions of JB and AMI, and my own emotional connection to that relationship, I consider the matter fairly well resolved for me, although I hope Big Finish does an audio down the road to delve further into the mysteries of our Miss Winters ( Dare I hope for AMI  to actually star in an audio?.
I have read that Big Finish considers their audios to be a prequel series to Return to Collinwood. There's nothing that contradicts them from being in the same continuity, RtC just seems to be set 20+ years later. Lara Parker's first novel, which was abridged as an audio book read by Lara Parker by Big Finish, also fits in with the other audio continuity pretty well. He rsecond novel, the Salem Branch, does have events that would make fitting in with the audios more difficult, but if I squint  I can just about reconcile them.
As for Carolyn and Ned, with repeated relistening I rather like them togather. The more mature Ned is nothing like the Ned we saw on tv ( who was either pawing at Sabrina in an incestous manner or screaming at Chris) , the older Ned seems pretty much like what you'd expect form a more mature and settled down Jeff Clark. 30+ years had passed since the end of the series, so the characters have grown and developed new relationships. I can deal with that. I find RtC overall to be an excellent revisitng of those characters. What does drive me crazy with remorse is that Violet Chavez Collins was supposed to be Laura Stockbridge Collins. Oh for what could have been!

I thought Jason had great sexual chemistry with Liz, in a wrong dirty sort of way. Ironicly, I didn't find any chemistry between Paul and Liz, but Liz was [spoiler]a Leviathon pawn then so she wasn't really herself.[/spoiler] I think Jason was probably just being hurtful to Vicki, but maybe he remembered his time with Liz and noted the close relationship between Liz and Vicki and figured there was a chance that she was his.
If somebody can put this in a spoiler box I'd appreciate it, I have no idea how to do that.
Return to Collinwood has [spoiler]the reading of Liz's will, in which she reveals that she was Vicki's mother. It doesn't give any details about her father or why she gave her up, but does discuss a little of Liz's feelings in bringing Vicki to Collinwood, her intentions toward Vicki then of making her part of the family and why Liz never told the truth. Nancy Barrett does a great job reacting to the news. Sadly, Vicki isn't present in the story though, so Carolyn's reaction is the center of that scene, but NB knocks that scene out of the park.[/spoiler] I really recommend RtC , and the newer Big Finish cds, they are a great continuation of DS.

The Barn/Kitty plot was before the Leviathons, so no, I don't think so.
I 'm pretty sure that when Jeff's ghost eps were done it was with the intention to follow up with another trip to 1796.
I also do think an evil Vicki in PT 1970 would have been great. I always imagined that PT Maggie's unseen sister Jennifer was really Vicki who had been adopted by Sam and his wife (and that Vicki was Sam and Liz's biological daughter) .

I had heard that DC's plan during the Leviathan story was to bring Vicki back by having Barnabas go back in time and save her again, a replay of 1796. But negotiations with AM fell thru and that plot was abandoned.
I always hated the way Vicki's fate was left, especially since her exit was so good. At least she got to be happy with the man she loved. Everybody else that left was sent to Wyndcliff lol.
I hope that AM can be convinced to do a Big Finish cd play ( or lots of them!) so that Vicki can finally be saved!