I will always prefer a permawhite Joker, but there's something very special about this Joker... not just his personality, but his appearance as well. That he's been more humanized (in terms of appearance only) does make him more frightening in a way. A joker that's completely white (with a corpse-like complexion) would have been very creepy, yes, but it wouldn't have been very relatable. It would have turned him into a bogeyman like Freddy Krueger - something that's frightening in its own way, but something that you're still detached from because it's so unlikely that you'll ever see anything like it in normal life. Yes, it could happen (Michael Jackson and whatnot), but it's so improbable that it would lessen the dramatic impact of the film.
But pretty much everyone has seen a clown. And when you see a clown, it's very rare that they have makeup on any area other than their face. What Nolan has done is taken something from every day life and turned it into something terrifying. And yes, I realize that has been done before... but usually in horror movies, where the clowns are typically some kind of scary creature (similar to the comic book Joker), so like Freddy Krueger, there's detachment to the whole thing. This is the most serious way I've ever seen it done. And that's what's going to scare people. Knowing that when they get up and get ready to go to work out there, there could be someone like this running around on the loose. You simply wouldn't have that with permawhite.
The comic book Joker isn't a monster because of what he is, but because of what he does, and in that way, these two Jokers are exactly the same. Frankly, I'm pretty glad that Nolan went this route now. I'll always have my permawhite Joker in the animated series and the comics. But this? This is something refreshing, something that renews the character and gives him the ability to evolve. I'd much rather have that than have the character stay the same for so long (on both paper and the silver screen) that he becomes stale and causes people to lose interest in him.