I think you could be right in your theory, at least a bit. I notice that when it comes to some things, I'm oddly loyal. I watched the story from the beginning and was a bangel fan for years, but now I feel thet angel's all wrong for Buffy, and that Spike and Buffy should get a chance to date. But everytime I hear" Spuffy is better than Bangel" there's something inside of me that thinks that they should be together. It could be that they never got a good chance (Angel, being the moron he is, left) or because that's how it was at first. I imagine that if I had seen the movie before the series I would be a Buffy/Pike shipper.
Of course, I'm not always like that. I'm more of a Willow/Tara shipper than Willow/Oz (but I'm not sure if Willow choose to stay with Tara because she loved her more or because she really thought Oz was too dangerous) even tough I watched the show from the beginning.
In some ways, I don't like change at all, and it takes a while for me to adjust to things, like new hair colors, new boyfriends...