All Star Superman proved that they don't need a reboot, just good stories. Even though he's my least favorite character of all time those were some of my favorite comics ever. That line had potential but DC never properly backed it and Frank Millers Goddamn Batman was half assed and treated like just something to do when he got tired after masturbating on piles of money. The problem with having a single character in multiple in-continuity books is that you can't do anything epic with the characters without effecting change across all of them, thus the stories must be kept generic and status-quo safe except for the annual crossover that fucks things up and nobody really knows how to run with it anyway.
One of the great things about DC when I was kid was that continuity between the books was loose enough that doing something shitty with a character in one book didn't screw him up for every other book that character appeared in. It also gave writers and artists some freedom to experiment without "the powers that be" decreeing it wasn't in line with the "official" version.
For example, Haney's Batman in B&B and WF was always doing insane shit but it didn't affect whatever was going on over in Detective, JLA or Batman. Similarly, because continuity wasn't that tight you got Englehart and Rogers able to kick ass and take names over in 'Tec without worry that "their" Batman had to tie in with the other titles or (worse yet) some crossover.
