I know we're beating a dead horse but i couldnt agree more shinlyle, MJ and Peter were handled so well before OMD and JMS gained continuous praise because of it. Plus the book was rising in sales as well, people LIKING JMS' direction for Peter Parker (for the most part anyway). No gimmicks, no crossovers, the book was thriving off of good storytelling and as we can all see from his current Thor run, JMs has a knack for great storytelling. It was only when Spidey got caught up in crossovers that the book decreased in quality, but EVERYTHING he did with JRJR was classic material. JMS created a new nemesis for Spiderman that was actually a serious threat, can that be said of any of the new BND villains? I think the increase in sales should've indicated to Marvel that people liked Peter parker/Spiderman the way he was and they probably should've just let him be.
We all know this "3x a month" thing isn't gonna last much longer, they cant keep it up forever. When they do eventually go back to once a month, i wonder what the sales performance is gonna be.