Just getting on my high horse a bit...
As I understand it, The Vampire Diaries carries with it an inherently better premise for a television series than does Twilight. What it shares with Meyers' Saga (other than a genre and the notion of a triangle) is a target demographic. Quite simply, TVD is intended for Young Adults.
But Dark Shadows is more akin to True Blood, in that both are essentially aimed at full blown adults. Even for its time, DS was rather startling vis-a-vis its themes. For example, vampirism clearly became a metaphor for both addiction and sexuality. Unlike a typical YA love story, DS romances rarely had a genuinely working relationship. In fact, DS throughout its run had an ongoing sense of tragedy (as opposed to angst).
My point is--the genre of Urban Fantasy (which in general terms includes such things as Twilight and Dark Shadows and Harry Potter and Anita Blake, etc.) seems pretty wide-ranging to me. There seems to me an audience for both Stephanie Meyers and Dan Curtis/Tim Burton, for both TVD and TB. As long as they are done well.
IMHO