I saw it more like a 'tribute' to the older detopian stuff than dumbed-down for a modern audience.
And I'll give them credit for having a good ending. 1984 had a good, brutal ending, but it didn't really show people how to beat the system. Obviously, Orwell's message was 'don't create that sort of a world in the first place'. I wouldn't say a downbeat ending was better/worse/the same as an upbeat ending, but it was nice that Equilibrium did something different.
