Could somebody point me to the Owl's big arc in the comic so I can join in about how awesome he is?
I'm not sure he had a whole lot of "big arcs" in the comics, he isn't that well used in the comics. A lot of people say the Owl/Dr. Octopus gang war story in Spider-Man was pretty good, some people like the "Lowlife" Arc that featured Owl as the villain in Bendis' run and Owl did play an significant role in the DD/Spidey Crossover from 2001, even though he was not the main villain.
There was a gang war story in the 80s, where Kingpin was fighting his former lieutenants for control over NYC, I think it would be better to use a gang war story with Owl as the one opposing Kingpin rather then his former lieutenants, because the lieutenants were rather throw away characters and having a more developed and centralized enemy for Kingpin to feud with would make for a better story.
I'd rather he was a rival actually trying to make a play on the Kingpin, resulting in DD being used as a pawn, ultimately being maneuvered by Fisk into taking down the Owl in one of those Xanatos Gambit scenarios.
Haven't you reading my other posts on this thread, that's what I have been suggesting with the Owl.
He doesn't have to be an end all, be all bad guy. He just has to be a threat. Which he is.
Then again, you could just take the nuts and bolts of the character and simply make him extremely competent. Just because he never really caught on in the comics doesn't mean somebody can't write a compelling Owl in a script. Play him up more as the Moriarty style villain he was originally supposed to be. You'd be surprised how easy it is to improve a character with a little abstract thinking.
Kingpin is already a crime boss villain who plays Moriarty to Daredevil, how would Owl be anything but a Kingpin clone if he is serving the exact same role Kingpin is? How would Owl be different from Kingpin if he is also presented as DD's Moriarty? I think should be different from each other, Kingpin should be the calm and in control crime boss, Owl should be less competent then Kingpin, more mentally unstable , less concerned with his public image, more willing to to resort to blood shed. Owl should have a sort of animistic cunning, but he can undermined by an extreme temper.
Owl shouldn't be stupid, but he should be insane. In a way Owl would be more dangerous then Kingpin, because he would care less about the consequences of his actions then Kingpin. Heck Owl has been mentally unstable in the comics since the 80s, in the Lowlife arc he scratched one of his minions for no good reason and in the early 90s Owl had a mental break down and was attacking small time criminals because he considered himself "New York's chief predator."