I'm all on board with your particular problems with regard to XF and Krycek canon (and I find I make much the same finicky distinctions you do). As a ficwriter my relationship with XF canon is so contrary and fucked up that had it and I been a couple, we'd have been in therapy. Sigh.

I'm with you on the character development bit, especially -- that what the character has done and had done to him in canon adds to the core of who he is, and if you take one of those bits away then you're dealing with a different beast entirely. But it's even more complicated -- I feel that if I ignore a particularly painful bit of canon for convenience, then I'm letting the character down. Like if a friend or a kid were hurt and I chirped, "Oh pooh, it didn't happen! We'll pretend all is fine! Chin up!"

I'm talking about Krycek's arm here, of course. But that's also why I can't make my Jeffrey/K/Ma triangle fic set in the never-never-land after RatB work, no matter how much I adore that dynamic in fics that were written straight after as post-eps. I *know* poor Jeffrey's lying in the X-Files office, shot in the face (not to mention all that happened later), and he deserves better than us ignoring it.

And on a more cheerful note, I think I got back from vacation the same time you did. Hope yours was good, too!