I liked it fine at the time, and was actually pleased that some things from Secret Wars actually carried over.  Then someone had the bright idea to turn it into Venom...bleah.

Then in the 90s someone tried to replicate that success and gave Peter four new costumes -- because four crappy costumes are better than one good one, right?

... and I bet you only remembered that storyline because I just brought it up (and probably wish I hadn't!).

I'd say the Black Costume kind of falls in the middle.   

Show a comics fan a black costume boot and they might figure it out -- Spider-man famously had a black costume once, right?   Show a fan a BC glove -- yes (and now I understand why the white patch on top of the glove is so important to the look, regardless of the logistics of how the webs work)

The non-comics fan... ehh probably not for both the boot and the glove.

The original Red and Blues (or Red and Blacks, if you swing that way) are the control.  It usually bats high, if not 1000 for the test on both comic and non-comic fans.

It was an early experiment in spinning off from the Spider-Man success story without necessarily duplicating the character with near-exact copies. What Marvel found, of course, was that near-exact copies were really what the public wanted.

I also found the characters weirdly reminiscent of the Kirbyverse line for some reason, and they didn't establish a long-lasting foothold in the public imagination either, although I believe they were far more deserving of one.

As for the black costume itself, I remember thinking at the time what a great marketing gimmick it was and a wonderful means of changing everything while changing nothing. The alien elements that it brought to Peter's daily life were unfortunate, but all of Marvel blurred and blended it's individual colors into one, massive purple-gray bruise anyway. Spidey still knows Thor and hung out on more than one occasion with the Guardians of the Galaxy. An alien costume wasn't that far a bridge to cross. 

Also, it was the Marvel Era of Highly Publicized Change and New Visuals anyway. The FF got their nun costumes. Iron Man was in his Silver Centurion armor, completely removing any reason to call him the "Golden Avenger," and there were rumors in the air that Jim Shooter was going to kill Peter Parker and maybe replace him with Flash Thompson since "anybody could be Spider-Man." 

The overall effect left me a little non-plussed. I was excited one by one with the changes initially, but taken all together, it somehow made everything less believable rather than more. It seemed a little forced. Soon after, Captain America would be replaced (because anybody can be Captain America), Mr. Fixit would take over for the Hulk, Thor would grow a beard and wear a more ceremonial set of armor. After that, we'd begin losing the characters entirely with USAgents, Thunderstrikes, and War Machines. 

Something about the very idea of identity became dislodged in the Marvel creative formula and open season was the rule, all year 'round, every year. Is it exciting to have "everything up for grabs" and nothing you can rely upon?

I'm going to vote no. 

All of that being said, I find the black costume weirdly nostalgic now, in a way I don't associate with the other changes from that time. Something about my aesthetic sense has decided that I kind of like the visual, or maybe I enjoyed those comics from that time more than I realized. It may just be that they were among the last comics that I did enjoy in an non-cynical, unqualified way. That Byrne cover with the white soles. The building turning to gold. I liked all of that at the time in some sort of way I no longer seem to be able to anymore, even in back issues.

The black costume was far more reliant on Spidey's distinctive body language and poses to convey the idea that Peter was still the guy inside that suit.

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Prodigy, Dusk, Hornet, and Ricochet. Prodigy emphasized Peter's superhuman strength, Ricochet played on his agility, Hornet was his science/tech side, and I never understood what Dusk's deal was.

I once asked Shooter how those back-of-the-hand webshooters were supposed to work. In Ditko’s original design, the weblines shot straight out across Peter’s palm, making it the easiest thing in the world for him to grab them. Shooter informed me that “all he had to do” was flip his hand over to grab the line. Couldn’t make that any way practical in my mind.

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This is why you're great at what you do. I'd have never have thought of that.

It really doesn't make sense. All that twisting his wrist makes web-swinging difficult.

The original Red and Blues (or Red and Blacks, if you swing that way) are the control.  It usually bats high, if not 1000 for the test on both comic and non-comic fans.

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Excluding my mother ( and a few others) who have called Spider-Man "Superman" on a few occasions. ;)