The problem with what JMS did is that he fucked around with one of the most significant stories of the last 30+ years and pretty retconned it into insignificance.
At the time of its original publication, "the Death of Gwen Stacy" was one of the most groundbreaking stories any comic book company had produced.
At a time when characters are killed, and brought back to life, regularly, this might seem hard to believe, but Gwen's death was a major, major, shock. Suporting characters did not die, and the hero's girlfriend sure as hell didn't die. As a result, Gwen's death was almost as shocking as if, for example, one day Superman DIDN'T catch Lois Lane as she plummted from the Daily Planet.
To make things even more significant was the fact that Gwen's death was NOT because she was "Spider-man's Girlfriend, Gwen Stacy." She wasn't kidnapped because the Goblin set out to capture her in a scheme of revenge against the wall-crawler. She didn't end up in his clutches because she was a "snooping girl reporter." Instead, she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Finally, it should be noted that a lot of what Gwen symbolized was Peter's innocence. Her death meant a death of that innocence, for better or worse. Uncle Ben died because Peter didn't get involved. Gwen died despite Peter getting involved.
In short, there was a reason that Busiek and Ross used her death as the climax of the "Marvels" mini-series. It had very specific meaning.
And, rather than respect any of that, JMS threw it all out. Gwen was no longer an innocent and her death was no longer random.
You can defend JMS by saying "he's just trying to tell a good story." However, a "good storyteller" doesn't need to throw out everything that was meaningful and important about someone else's story.
So, he may have been trying to tell a good story. But he failed, miserably.
