For me, yes, of course. It's canon. No question.
Exaclty. I hate that that plot point was thought up and executed (not to mention HOW it was executed), but it happened on the show, so it is most definitely canon. There's no way to get around it.
I think that most of the people who say they refuse to accept it simply like to outwardly pretend that it never actually happened. Hell, sometimes *I* like to pretend it never happened, too. But deep down, of course, we all know it
did happen and we
have to accept it, no matter how much we dislike it. But as you say, in the DS universe no one ever
really stays dead. So, rather than refuse to accept it, perhaps we should simply choose to think that had DS continued they would have eventually come up with some way to rectify it...