I was never that into Spike. Or Angel, for that matter. My favorite 'version' of Spike was S7 Spike and it took about four years of Angel for me to get really attached to Angel. In the Jossverse, my sympathies tended to lie pretty firmly with the humans.
What's different about the vampires in The Vampires Diaries?
I'm going to start trying to do S2 reviews starting this weekend. Just wanted to do a quick round of my pre-rewatch impressions of each episode, only one or two lines each, just testing what I remember without the rewatch: ( spoilers all the way through 2x13 - Daddy Issues )