so different from all the previous Bonds, I think it would have worked nicely to have him be a completely different character, but still in the Bond Universe. Would have been ultra-cool to have Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig in the same movie, with Brosnan symbolically passing the torch to Craig in some way.

I think Craig's character was interesting enough to keep Bond fans interested, even if he was "Agent 008" with a different name, instead of being Bond. And this new female character could be "009" or something like that.