When DC "darkened" Congorilla, I saw it as a sign of the Apocalypse.

I can understand wanting to expand the readership base by writing stories for older readers (though I wouldn't call them all "mature") but what sort of asinine thinking was it to circle to proverbial wagons and reduce the stories that were bringing in new and younger readers?

JB, was there any sort of effort to keep comics more open to the populace?  Was the trend of pushing the writer/artist ahead of the character what contributed to the arrested development that exists today?

I also said, tho, looking back on how "relevant" had spun down into "grim
and gritty", that I expected if "fun" did catch on it would not be long before
it became "goofy".

I think the benchmark to compare these things with would be Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Returns 2.

The first was a refreshing look at the character.

The second pretty much bastardised the characters and was a very unpleasant read (IMO). Robin is a hero. That DC were prepared to let THAT happen to him spoke volumes to me.

in many ways, I felt that the original grim and gritty stuff was still focussed on building the characters and heroes. Somewhere along the line it became about knocking them down, making them the villains. Which leads to Civil War, which leads to Dark Reign. Which means it's been years since heroes have acted like heroes.

   The way I see it, "dark and gritty" can fit some characters.  The Batman looks good this way, with the nature of his battle against crime, his rogues' gallery and his own origins.  Daredevil and, to a lesser extent, Spider-Man would be a similar case.  However, I'm in agreement with many that it has been taken too far, especially with characters that don't normally lend themselves to such dark themes as Superman.

   It disturbs me that virtually all of the established superheroes today are written and portrayed in this manner.  So much more so when you see Marvel and DC apparently backtracking with "kid-safe" alternatives.  Comics are already much marginalized by their being restricted to DM outlets.  The damage has been done.  The question now becomes, "How long before it all comes crashing down and we have to rebuild it from scratch?"