Whoa! What can one say about that article?!
Well, first off, the Depp/DS film was not D.O.A. at the box office. But that point has been gone into in the film's own topic, so it would be redundant to get into specifics here.
As for the development of Barnabas, apparently that's something that's going to be debated/argued about by the various factions on the show until every last one of them has passed away. However, the story I've heard most often is that Frid, producer Robert Costello, and the writers met shortly after Barnabas was cast and as a group they decided that Barnabas would be a vampire with a lot of angst, and Frid definitely preferred to play that rather than the cliched evil vamp. And of course it helped that DC was out of town because they basically got to do it their way before he came back. And though DC would have preferred the evil vamp, he eventually came around once he saw how the audience was responding to Barnabas.
As for the actual creation of Barnabas on paper before Frid was cast, that honor would seem to go to Art Wallace. Robert Costello has said that Wallace created the character and came up with the whole backstory connecting him to Josette and Jeremiah, and that that backstory is what they went with during the entire '67 present day storyline (until it was completely thrown out the window during the 1795/96 storyline). And, well, there's also how Wallace's law suit against DC for a share of the profits from all the Barnabas/DS merchandise was settled in Wallace's favor - and that wouldn't have happened if Wallace hadn't had a provable claim to Barnabas.
And as for Marmorstein's remarks about the Depp/DS film, to me they come off as sour grapes more than anything. But one thing he said that's completely bizarre is that Barnabas would never kill innocent people. Hello! Did he never watch DS after he was fired? Barnabas definitely killed innocent people when his blood lust overcame him. And the incident in the film[spoiler]with Barnabas killing the construction workers (and the hippies)[/spoiler]is exactly the same sort of situation!
But at any rate, thanks for sharing the article, Gothick. It's a fascinating read on just so many levels.