Jack had a crack at it. Stan didn't like what Jack came up with and rejected Jack's work. He then gave the problem to Ditko. His solution was the Spider-Man we see in AF #15.

Consistent.

The version the author postulates is: Jack had a crack at it. Stan pretended to not like what Jack came up with (but secretly did). Then told Steve to change the design but keep Jack's other stuff that he had pretended to not like.

The simplest explanation works best, to my mind -- which is the version that Stan and Ditko agree on.

Not to mention that the Spider-Man outfit looks nothing like the shorts and boots, jumpsuits, or (later) wildly futuristic designs Kirby was known for, but did have that lean unique look that shared some of the same vibe as Ditko's designs for the Blue Beetle, the Creeper, the Odd Man, and others.

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Not at all. It's just a contrast to the Stan the Glory Hog spin one hears about. In issue 10 Stan makes the switch for the formal "Dear Editor" to "Dear Stan and Jack". And the address is "Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four..." and I think it remains so until Kirby leaves. The team attitude that Stan promoted help sell Marvel to the fans and created Marvel' funky image; 

Per Stan, Jack, Steve, Jack drew a few pages of Spiderman.  Here the stories diverge slightly.  Stan has (consistently, I think) said that Jack's version of Spiderman was "too heroic" and did not match "his concept."  (Odd, since Jack brought Stan the concept).  Stan said he then gave the book to Ditko, who drew the book in accordance with how Stan conceived it.

Per Ditko, he walked into the office one day and Stan told him about a book Jack was drawing called Spiderman.  Ditko, himself a comics fan, told Stan it sounded a lot like the old "Fly" character  (which had at that point only appeared a few years earlier).  I don't think Ditko has said how much time passed, but shortly thereafter Stan assigned Spider-man to him, giving him the pages Jack had drawn.  I draw the inference that Stan did not want to be accused of copying the Fly, or feared legal problems with Archie, and gave Ditko the book for that reason.  (Of course, its possible Stan's explanation and the conclusion I draw from Ditko's account are both true.  Clearly, from a public relations standpoint, Stan would not want to say that he took the book from Jack because Jack had brought him a rip off of the Fly).

However, it's entirely possible that Jack was rankled by Stan's oft-repeated story of how his version of the character just didn't pass muster with Stan.  At one point--I think in one of the interviews that appeared in the Jack Kirby Collector, but don't ask me where--Jack says, "If I drew such a bad version of Spider-man, why did Stan have me do the cover for the first issue?"  At the height of his dissatisfaction with Marvel, Jack tended to overstate his grievances, apparently never having heard that line of poetry that goes "anything more than the truth would have been too weak."  The "I created Spiderman" probably falls in that category.  In his more reflective moments, I like to think that Jack would have readily acknowledged that Ditko was Spiderman's artistic designer.

Based on the available evidence, I think Stan's contribution was:  1.  liking the Spiderman idea Kirby brought him;  2.  selling the idea of a Spiderman character to a skeptical Martin Goodman; 3.  recognizing (or perhaps checking and satisfying himself) that Ditko was correct in describing the Kirby concept as a lot like the Fly;  4.  solving that problem by taking the story from Kirby and giving the assignment to Ditko; 5. dialoging the pages plotted by Ditko, who designed, likely at Stan's request, a whole new costume and story.

As our esteemed host often has observed, lots of people have opinions about this, but few of them were sitting in the Marvel offices when the events went down.  All those of us who weren't there can do is draw what we consider to be reasonable inferences on the basis of the available evidence (and sometimes conflicting testimony).  It behooves all of us not to be dogmatic in our assertions, not to pretend a level of certainty that is not possible for us, and not to ignore the possibility that we may be wrong.  Still, Spider-man is the most important character creation in comics in the last half of the twentieth century; it's not to be expected that people would lack interest in, or fail to speculate, on how he came about.

I hate this whole thing where people look for a real-life villain in something like the creation of Marvel Comics. ALL those men were talented, and Marvel would not have been what it was without ANY of them.

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When I started this tread the furthest thing from my mind was to portray anyone as a villain. I apologize if it seemed that way. I love Jack and a lot of his stuff. Kamandi was one of my favorite comics in the 70's. Second only to Spidey. The Stan is Satan stuff pisses me off, so I would never would want to do that to Jack. I totally agree that the talent of those men built a empire that endures to this day. MAKE MINE MARVEL!!!!!!  (At least until twenty years ago or so. It still breaks my heart to go to the comic book store and not buy the new Spidey )