If you eliminate canon in a franchise, you essentially eliminate the overarching world it exists in. Personally, I'd rather be able to trace events through multiple stories and watch my favorite characters grow than have a disjointed series of meandering events in a world where absolutely nothing matches up.
This is where you and I disagree. I've always been more of a fan of Elseworlds stories, stories that are outside the Canon. With DC, Kingdom Come, New Frontier, Justice, All Star Superman, and so many more DC stories that are non-canon are just superb pieces of writing. With Marvel, I love Miles Morales, and I love that they actually had the balls to kill Peter Parker in a respectful way.
Hell, even with MegaMan, I dislike the fact that the Classic series and the X series connect canonically, cause I still think it makes no sense. Midichlorians are actually canon, and they're incredibly stupid. This is where continuity fails at times, and fails hard. I'd rather the Prequel movies never happened because they are so insanely shitty that I would like to go back and erase them OR redo them, which I'm hoping with all my Dark Force powers that Disney actually does.
But that's probably not going to happen, and it is in this where I agree with the author.
The fans will support whichever of the continuities they prefer, either because they have affection for the author, or because they like one more than the other, or maybe some of them will support all of them because they like all of them. That’s how it should be.
This is the ultimate truth of the matter. Personally, I choose to think that the prequels didn't happen. Not because they "mess with my childhood" or something like that, but because they're just simply so incredibly shitty and can be done so much better....like most likely it had been in the EU before these [parasitic bomb] movies come out. It's why I love the KOTOR games so much, because you can choose your own path. Same with certain Star Trek U books.
Mind you, this is not me saying I agree entirely with her article. I think a lot of it is kinda cynical and missing the point of why fans are pissed, especially the DC fans. [tornado fang]ing with established canon does make people upset, like with Spidey or the New 52. Plus you don't know what you're getting from the result of said fuckery. That has nothing to do with it being canon, but more with it being stupid. Like the Midichlorians & Jake Lloyd's "acting" skills.
And ultimately, like you said, this is about how they handled it, which is exactly why the New 52 and Spidey were so [tornado fang]ing awful.
What that article fails to mention are the good things about canon. Canon gives us continuity. Continuity for world-building is a good thing. There are consistencies, there are things that happen because something else happened. These things exist in our own world, and when they're applied to fiction, they give a franchise a grounding in reality. Character see consequences that follow them, just as we do. Characters grow in response to various incidences, just as we do. And characters can expect something in their world to work the same way every time they use it, just as we do.
Let's face it; if there was no continuity, you'd be starting your car a different way each day, and it'd look different every time you see it. Our lives have a canon, so why shouldn't our fiction?
Because it's fiction, and you can mess with what happens, or has happened in a fictional universe. You cannot do that in your life. I do get in my car & start it a different way each day, whether it's plug in my cell phone first, or my iPod, or whatever. Sometimes the car doesn't start cause you forgot to turn off the lights and the battery is drained. Sometimes I take the bus. While characters respond differently to different situations, you're still in control of what those characters do and how they respond. And, more to the point, you know the outcome of what that character learns and how his or her story continues. Life doesn't work like that.
If an author doesn't like something in a story, they can go back and fix it. Not that they always should, because then you get Greedo shooting first. We cannot do that in real life. If someone went back and completely removed Midichlorians from existence, I think .0000001% of Star Wars fans would never complain, and actually cheer. They can do that. We cannot. If I could, I'd completely rewrite all of 2012 from April to December.