I'm just waiting for DC to pull a "Spider-Man/MJ" - and dissolve the Superman/Lois marriage. The writers seem unable to deal with the marriage, so they largely ignore it (of course, they could just be bad writers...).

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I don't think DC will ever try to get rid of Clark / Lois wedding.

I tend to think that Spider-Man has suffered more from the "lets age the characters" bug than most superheroes.  Earlier, anyway.  I wonder if that doesn't stem from the fact that he started as both a "main character'" and as a kid.  You talk about the younger group who wrote Peter and co. "as themselves."  I wonder if that's a reflection of the fact that when that younger group was reading, Spider-Man and his supporting cast was them, i.e. a bunch of kids, while most other main characters weren't them, so when they took over writing, they just kept Peter and friends their age rather than leaving them as kids.

Eventually those same creators caught up with other superheroes in terms of age and then those characters started aging, too.

Nothing wrong with Super-hero stories with a beginning, middle and end. It just is not going to work with a character designed not to have an ending. All their adventures take place in the middle. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker are part of the "appeal" of Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. Sticking someone else in the suit makes no sense in terms of sales and marketing.

Getting hung up on window dressing like dates and fashion means you're overthinking your comics. It doesn't matter when Cap came out of the ice or what war Ben and Reed fought in. Those happended "yesterday" and the current issue happens "now". Those are the only time markers you need.

Some women could be kept as helpless females, I don't see the big deal. :/  Same of like some men should be lamer fighters than others and never get better.

And kinda similar, while I'd want troubled people to get help, I'd rather characters like Aurora were never cured. Have her skip her meds or something. Cuz Jeanne-Marie is a great character in her own right too, even if she's close to being an over achieving sinner sometimes.

Kids or teens should stay at that stage forever. It's like permanent kittens, who'd be agaisnt that?

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Which is precisely the idea behind GENERATIONS -- and an "imaginary story" such as GENERATIONS is precisely where such ideas belong. Certainly not in a "shared universe" with previously established characters.

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Keeping them truly timeless -- which means no life-altering events -- is exactly what kept characters like Superman and Batman appealing to a steadily shifting audience for decades.

"Steadily shifting" is the key phrase. The problem lies not in the timeless characters, but in the readers who stick around long enough to NOTICE that the characters are timeless. The first time you think to yourself Hey! I'm five years older than when I started reading, why isn't Captain Fonebone? is exactly the time you should be thinking about finding another hobby.

The stories progressed mostly in real time...

Only in the beginning. Stan and his artists did finally put the brakes on when they realized these characters had endurance in the market place.

The notion of characters growing old and retiring so they can be replaced is the kind of thinking that has had disastrous consequences for the industry (Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Silver Age Flash).

Say it with me--these are FICTIONAL characters.