Okay, let's accept the basic premise that all the stories in which Peter and MJ were married could have worked just as well with Peter and MJ just being in a relationship and living together--which is what Marvel has been saying since One More Day ended and Brand New Day began (although it is a little weird to suggest that such a life changing event such as being married really had no effect what so ever on the course of your life, but whatever). As you said, Spidey would still fight the guy bitten by the "radioactive rabbit" regardless of whether or not he was married because it's, essentially, the same story.
Well, then, if it doesn't matter if Spider-Man was married or single in those stories in which he was supposed to be married, then can we assume then that it wouldn't matter if Spider-Man was married or single in Brand New Day? According to Marvel and Mr. Slott, it's no. Because his being single was integral for those stories to work. Furthermore, he says that changing it otherwise makes it a different story and that playing a "what if?" game because the stories have already been told.
So does that mean then that, since chagning the stories in which Peter Parker was married is something one can't do because it was integral for Spider-Man to be married in order for those stories to work? According the Marvel and Mr. Slott, the answer is no. Because those stories, they say, could work just as well with Peter and MJ being a couple living together as opposed to being married.
But doesn't that contradict the idea that Dan Slott proposed that changing an element of a story, such as a characters marital status, no longer make it the same story and thus become a different story? According to Marvel and Dan Slott, apparently not.
What I'm saying is that if we accept the idea that stories in which Peter was married can be changed for him to become single and still be considered the same story, then you can just as easily say the same thing about the Brand New Day stories. But if we accept the idea that the stories in Brand New Day should not be changed because then they would be different stories if Peter was married instead of single, then we should be able to argue that you could easily say the same thing about those stories in which Peter was married.
