JB:

When DC decided to kill Barry Allen, Dick Giordano told me it was because "there were no more stories to tell with him."

Bah! I said. But for the fact that I only have about four running poses, I could have done another hundred issues with Barry.

But, alas, DC was then in their mindset that characters that were fuct-up were fuct-up forever. (Unless Alan Moore wanted to do something with them.)

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For whatever reason, DC seemed to think 'Only Cary Bates could write the Flash'. The guy only missed four issues in about 11 years before it was cancelled. One of those, in 1980 featured a team-up with Firestorm, which was handled by Gerry Conway, but a second story in that issue was by Martin Pasko. Later, in '81-'82, there were two 'guest writer', presumably inventory, issues about 6 months apart...so DC at least experimented with other 'creative voices'. Both of those stories still read pretty much as if Bates wrote them, anyway.

IMO, Barry did become something of an 'old hat' character under Bates...but the remedy for that is bringing in a new writer, not some lame excuse like Giordano gave(Eveyone at DC was drinking the 'Change is good' Kool-Aid by 1985, obviously).

 Besides, all they did for a year or so after Wally took over was have him fight Barry's villains about every other issue.