I didn't want to kill off Faith, but I did want to start Buffy down a possibly more self-reflective path, if that makes any sense.

Spike, too, gets a bit of self-reflection a little earlier. I thought that would be one benefit of having Joyce there for him — being nice but not giving him a pass, either — and giving him someone to care about, which is important to him. In the original, everybody is always giving him grief (mostly deserved) and that just makes people less likely to look within, IMO. So, yeah, he's already well on the way to figuring out his trajectory. If it turns out that Buffy comes to rely on him, I think he'll come around even faster. Hmmm. Did you say "sequel"?

Thanks for commenting, darling!