Death of Venom was really a waste of a decent character. And Raimi, I believe did not kill him off because of hatred for the character, he
actually liked the character when Topher played him, he mentioned that in Comic-Con press conference. Personally I think inclusion of
Sandman was just because Raimi and Tobey liked him and wanted him in there, while us millions of fans wanted Venom. Sandman's story was
forced in the already well explained story, but Venom could have been something fresh. Who says Venom couldn't have served as the main
villain, if Raimi wanted to he could have easily made the character with more depth. Taking out Sandman could have allowed for more new
stories to take place rather than going back to finding Uncle Ben's killer and re-doscovering the hero within thing. We could have seen much
more of MJs relationship and much more of Eddie Brock, plus more of the conflict between two best friends, Harry and Peter. This movie just
didn't had that essence of the last two installments, but was good one way or another. Its not that Im against Sandman, but forcing in a story like
that and in the end cutting so many scenes that relate to it was just not right. Also, Venom's possible death suited well only if he had got enough
screen time. After reading that article on Foxnews, Im not taking out the possibilty that he may have survived even though I saw the skeleton
myself.
"I thought it would be unfair to [the fans]," he said of breaking the storyline up. The consequence of that decision is that fans may have to wait a bit to see the full-fledged supervillain in all his glory in Spider-Man 3." Raimi talks Venom, from scifi.com
I would 've waited for Venom to appear in all his glory in 4.