According to the interview with JQ posted today on Comic Book Resources, it was indeed Gwen who was supposed to return as a result of OMD.

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SER: Oh, if only! The fans would have pitched a fit, but to erase the whole "Gwen's death as unescapable signpost in Spider-Man's history."

If they were going to go back that far, I don't know why they wouldn't just reboot the whole thing and be done with it.  As it is they've all but tossed out every story that's come out since the majority of the current readership has been alive.

The very first Spider-Man comic I ever read dealt heavily with he and Mary Jane's married life so, to me, the character is as inseperable from his marriage as Mr. Fantastic or the Elongated Man. When I was eight, or twelve, or fifteen years old I didn't want to so much want to wholly identify with Peter Parker's problems as I wanted to overcome those relatable obstacles so as to acheive a semblance of normalcy and happiness, as he had done. Most of my friends, growing up, gravitated towards or developed a fondness for Spider-Man solely because he had overcome the types of problems typical to us and our age group to find happiness in the types of successful marriages and careers that we ourselves wanted. So, having read the reviews and the mediocre build-up to OMD's final part, I found myself dreading it.

That said, I don't think it's nearly as bad of a story as the Henny Penny's on the internet are billing it as. The dilemma is an interesting one: would you give up the greatest thing in your life to fix your worst mistake. The problem is, the dilemma is not a dilemma that fits the character (a character who admittedly has made a costume from an alien, met the judeo-Christian gods and fought alongside the Greek and Norse pantheons, and traveled back and forth in time on multiple occassions, so to say that this story doesn't suit the character is saying quite a bit!). There are problems in the scripting like:

SPOILERS

A.) Peter Parker coming home to find Mary Jane, nonplused, over the revelation that not only does the devil exist (confirming that the judeo-christian religion MUST be the one true one) but that he's in their living room trying to make a bargain.

B.) Or Mary Jane's baffling final dialogue to her disappearing husband : "Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot." What jackpot is it when your marriage (which has apparently been blessed and consecrated by God) is magically annulled?

C.) The notion that this is the issue of Spider-Man which will make the character more relatable to the young, future generation of readers, yet it involves the title character and his wife making a deal with The Prince of Lies/Darkness/Evil and the character, a paragon of virtue and good will, even being restrained by his wife when he attempts to strike this absolute embodiment of all that is unholy.

And there's even more head-scratching continuity problems that may or may not be explained, down the road (Mephisto himself notes that it's not really important how reality is reshaped, just that it reshapes).

Those problems are whether or not Harry's return deleted his marriage with Liz Allen, thus making Spider-Man's "bargain" kill their child at the expense of the title webslinger's clear conscious.

And, my favorite, if Spider-Man's consuming love for his wife which allowed him to escape a coffin Kraven imprisioned him, means that the character is really mouldering away under the Earth.

SPOILERS OFF

But, despite those problems (and many of them are huge, glaring, clumsy problems), JMS hit some nice emotional beats, always portrayed the marriage positively (although having it to decreed by God raises the question of HOW Mephisto was able to reverse it, the morality of the couple in defying God's will, and is, ultimately, a little too melodramatic), and leaves the future writers' with plenty of ways to seamlessly reverse he and Joe Q's decision.

I'm not happy with the new status quo, but I think that everybody needs to recognize that they will always have the option of leaving the book and reading and rereading their favorite ears: married or single Peter Parker. To feel any sense of entitlement or possession of a character is as silly and stupid as feeling a sense of ownership over Kentucky Fried Chicken or Coca-Cola's secret recipes. At the end of the day, I'm still happy that there exists probably close to a thousand comics about a fictional marriage that I liked and, as I always have had the option to do, can drop the book at my own leisure so as to buy those back issues.

If Gwen returns - she'll die again.

Harry Osborn will die again.

J J J will print papers about how bad Spider-Man is.

Peter and Mary Jane will hook-up again.

Everything will be re-hashed -- there is nothing new - Spider-Man is dead to me.

One question though --- didn't Mary Jane and Peter's relationship / marriage factor in to the origin of Venom?

I would be very happy if Venom ceased to exist -- probably the worst, most boring, Spidey villain ever created.

I used to dread the day that some doofus at ^^***** would see Arsenic and Old Lace running on the TV and look at a drawing of Aunt May and get an idea for a shocking Spider-man story.

Then Spider-Man got tied up and kissed by an insect themed  dominatrix and turned into a spider and his wife didn't even seem to care when he had compound eyes, and then the spider died and split open and Peter fell out with bio-webs and bug-talk powers.

Then House of M and No More mutants Daddy!

THEN Morlun showed up and ate his eye so he went to the hospital and while there he grew kill-spikes in his wrists and ate some of Morlun's head. Then he "died" and molted AGAIN gainging web vibration reading powers and he chased his old corpse around(now full of baby spiders) and maybe kicked it or punched it or something while it shouted Alan Moore-esque gibberish at him that I assume had some personal psychological relevance for the author. 

Then it turned out that Gwen had fucked the Green Goblin a while before he got around to killing her and her kids who looked just like Peter and her were in Europe having grown up with her clone to keep them away from Ozborne (or something) and they grew old fast and died and it was sad. If you as a reader felt a need to object to any of that, the author assured us, then it just shows how unsophisticated and immature your views of women really are. Even if you happen to BE a woman I guess.

Then Peter became Iron-Man's chump. Then Peter rebels and aunt may gets shot and the devil apparently offers to make him 20 again with no wife in exchange for saving her...probably because a kewler more recent demon like Blackheart was busy being in Ghost Rider stuff or something.

Now the whole Arsenic and old lace scenario doesn't seem that offbase.

QUOTE: THEN Morlun showed up and ate his eye so he went to the hospital and while there he grew kill-spikes in his wrists and ate some of Morlun's head. Then he "died" and molted AGAIN gainging web vibration reading powers and he chased his old corpse around(now full of baby spiders) and maybe kicked it or punched it or something while it shouted Alan Moore-esque gibberish at him that I assume had some personal psychological relevance for the author.

Don't forget the Spider-Totem and Ezekiel, Spider-Man's version of Ben Kenobi.

QUOTE: Quesada had been talking at length about how the marriage was too far from the core of the character before Spidey's ID was revealed to the public.  Revealing his identity to the public took him even further from the core so I knew a reboot was being planned.  I don't think it is a farce.

The farcical part is the method by which the status quo is restored (I can certainly sympathize with the intent).  Why the hell should Mephisto possibly care about Peter and MJ's marriage?  What cosmic, metaphysical significance could that marriage possibly have?  The answer, if there is one, is likely to be  monumentally stupid.

As for the unmasking, JQ approved it.  If he hadn't allowed that bit of witlessness to occur, he wouldn't have to resort to this craziness.

Yeah, there are several problems with the resolution of ONE MORE DAY -- the hero making a deal with the devil being the biggest one.

The continuity issues I will give them a pass on -- though, if this were THE TWILIGHT ZONE or if Peter had a brain in his head, he would have realized that it would be a classic sort of "Devil's Bargain" for him to sacrifice his marriage and then have Aunt May die anyway because MJ wouldn't have been around to keep her from slipping in the kitchen at some point in the past and so on.