I think how Sidney gets out of dying Scream 2 (agreeing to do a Diane Sawyer interview with Cotton) is more darkly humorous. Bringing the whole sending up the media and meta attention people loved back then, before reality television could have been Timothy Olyphant's outlet.
But overall Sidney is left with no one. Her only high school friend left was Randy and he had a death that still bugs me (they killed the best character when Gale is just asking for it!). Her college boyfriend and roommate were murdered and her other college friend turned out to be one of the killers.
That's a bad week. She latches onto Dewy and Gale in Scream 3 because other than her dad, they're the only people she really knows that are still alive.
But Scream 1 was more menacing. I do think they went with a more straight forward slasher though in Scream 3 and that is the only one I didn't like.
As for whose going to bite it in Scream 4? I'm saying it's going to be Sidney. They didn't see the Arquette separation/divorce comping when it was written and shot. And they want to start fresh, which means they're going to need a new protagonist. Well you have to clear the deck of the old protagonist to do that.
Albeit, it is too bad that Sidney survived all that crap only to get killed off 10 years later in a trip back to the wlel. Or not, we shall see.