John Byrne wrote: The astonishing magic of that first SUPERMAN/SPIDER-MAN book is something that can never be recaptured. Crossovers -- because of stuff like Amalgam -- actually reached the point where the fans were bored with them. Where they were greeted with a shrug, instead of astonishment.

Speaking for myself, the "boredom" set in when the crossovers started dealing with second-rate characters.  Superman/Spider-Man crosses over the absolute top, most popular characters of the two companies.  Green Lantern/Silver Surfer, no matter how well done, simply doesn't have that "Oh my God, I have to see it!" factor for me.  Neither did Batman/Punisher or Punisher/Archie.

The most successful inter-company crossovers have some fannish "wow!" factor to them, be it the thought of McFarlane drawing and Miller writing Batman, Superman and Spider-Man together, or just the hope of seeing who'd win -- Batman or Captain America.  The least successful just mash two similar characters together and achieve nothing (Batman/Daredevil, for example).

JB, sometimes the "imaginary story mentality" can work in the opposite way, at least for me.

If I don't like a story, or I think that it is against everything I know about the character... That's an imaginary story, for me. Like the last 5 years of the Spider titles.

The Good
Spider-Man/Superman
Batman/Captain America
Darkseid/Galactus
X-Men/New Teen Titans

The Bad
Avengers/JLA

The Ugly
Batman/Spawn

The Unread
Batman/Hulk
Superman/Fantastic Four
Green Lantern/Silver Surfer
Batman/Punisher

You're right, "officially" those stories are all in continuity and "real". Handbook will mention them, timelines will include those events. But (seriously, no flame intended!): why should I care for what Marvel decides? I am not bound to accept everything. I'm only a reader, not an editor! And after this, I have a question: in a time that we will call "before", Marvel and DC ignored those stories considered "wrong" or outdated (I remember that a couple of issues during your run FANTASTIC FOUR had this fate before Nathaniel Richards popped up years later). But was there any rule for this? Readers' complains? Stories released later denied those events? And how could the reader know this? Maybe the editors announced that the wrong stories were cancelled?

I'll conclude with this short story: last year a coworker of my father made me use his scanner for the images of my book. I had a copy of MOS #1 and told him that the stories he remembered were "imaginary" because they had no place in the new continuity. His answer? "My stories aren't imaginary. Yours are.".
He wasn't so wrong. He never read any stories after the 1960s, so MOS and following stories don't exist, for him.
A publisher can create (or destroy, sometimes) his continuity, but for the reader the only important continuity is the one he can see in his library. I haven't bought Iron Man for years... For me, the last 40 issues or so simply don't exist. 

John Byrne:

QUOTE: ...the original guy who was trying to give the impression he was a replacement. *** Hey, it's Mike Murdock!

With a heavy armor. Jumping on rooftops has never been so dangerous for poor Matt. Don't do this at home, kids!

I'd prefer to explore new ground, as with, say, Captain America and Wonder Woman.

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GOD I hope someone at DC and Marvel heard that! An awesome concept! I would hope it would give JB the opportunity to write the WWII Wonder Woman as Diana. Again, it was my only gripe with her /87 reboot that they took the immortal Diana out of the WWII history of DC

The only thing I'd like to see in addition to that is a WWII JSA/Invaders story by JB.

I'd prefer to explore new ground, as with, say, Captain America and Wonder Woman.

***

That sounds amazing, JB!

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What is it about the comicbook industry that forces us to take anything that is truly cool -- and not just hyped -- and beat it to death?

***

I'm wondering who the "us" is. The fans, the creators, the publishers? And only now or at any time? Was this true 20 years ago? Was this true 40 years ago? I'd be very interested in your opinion, JB. Thanks.

What???...no one has read this jewel?...it was done as a shared universe!