There is a huge,
huge difference between retconning things for shock value versus affecting the status quo for the sake of narrative progress. Just
take a look at
every single recent interview that Quesada has done
concerning Spider-Man; the man is completely, 100% horrified about the notion of anything disrupting his precious and marketable status quo, and just can't
stop talking about how all he wants is for Pete to remain changeless and marketable forever. And just take a gander at the massive clusterfck of retcons that occurred after Morrison left to see what Quesadilla thought about the long-term changes he brought to the X-Men; there's a reason that most X-fans joking refer to the "Reload" event post-Morrison as the "Retread" event. Look at "no more mutants"; Quesada
himself admitted that it only happened because he hates how the X-books have progressed since their 70s heyday of being lynched on the streets. The only thing it "changed" the X-Men into was their old selves.
Remember the
last time Spider-Man got new powers? Yeah, the ones where he gave birth to himself and then started talking to insects? The ones that appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man
just last year? Forgotten by the fans, ignored by the writers. Hell, JMS is barely incorporating any of Spidey's
new powers into his books, and
he was the one who just made them! How long will these last, I wonder?
And the new suit is only going to be around for Civil War. No permanent changes, nothing but temporary shock value to get people talking; after a while we'll go back to Quesada's safe little status quo where he can try to cook up yet
another temporary shock.
Gwen Stacy becoming a **** wasn't change, it was an enormous character assassination that Quesada himself all but boasts was merely a shock ploy to get fans riled. And yet, look where that story has gone now, look where the Goblin Twins are now: absolutely nowhere. Forgotten and ignored by both fans and writers. Nothing permanent changed, no harm no foul to the status quo.
Retconning things for the sake of shocking stories is awkward at best and cowardly at worst. You're too frightened to make any real ripples in the present stories so you have to go back and mess up stories from the past. It might work once or twice, but if it's all you ever do then all you're doing is changing the past, not the present.
There is absolutely no way Jean Grey is dead for good. Banshee, maybe. But considering all the resurrections Marvel has pulled recently, how do they expect us to take any deaths seriously anymore? And the Avengers aren't nearly recognizable enough for any change to their membership to hurt sales; I was a talking to a friend the other day -- not a big internet user, but a reasonably big X-Men fan -- and he thought I was joking when I said that Captain America was a Marvel character. There's no
risk in messing with his status quo.
All those "changes" you mention are just surface, superficial shock events designed by their very nature to be retconnable and temporary. They barely scratch at the character and are just as easily removed as they are implemented. And look at what Quesada's reaction is towards events such as Peter and MJ's marriage, their baby, and the death of Aunt May...stories that
can't be easily swept under the rug and forgotten: he absolutely hates them. They only remind him of how much Spider-Man has changed since his early days, changes that -- in his opinion -- only hurt Spider-Man's accessability and thus profitability. He pretty much explains outright that he isn't interested in what fans who have been following stories for a long time want, that he's only interested in what will draw in newer readers.
