Do you think this does/should mean Ethan Rayne will be retired from the Buffyverse for good now? Obviously Ethan's recent appearance as a reanimated corpse in Angel & Faith was planned long before Robin's tragic real-life passing.
It was!Ethan Rayne would have been an integral part of Ripper. But since Angel was the only spinoff that made it to fruition, plans for Ethan were put on hold and of course, it being many years earlier, different actors wouod have been needed to play the teenage Giles and Ethan.
But it was always fun when Ethan showed up, wasn't it?
With Andy Hallett, the writers at the time said Lorne's departure was a tribute to Andy's passing, but they did plan on bringing Lorne back into the 'verse at a later date. So we really only know with Glenn Quinn. I myself think that this would be the perfect opportunity to bring Doyle back as a PTB, to me it would be a fitting tribute. I was never an avid Smallville fan, but I remember Christopher Reeves (the original film Superman) played a brief mentoring role to the new Superman character in his last days. I think a brief scene of Doyle visiting Angel, and telling him that he's still always looking out for him from the afterlife could be a very nice tribute to both the character and actor.I'm pretty sure that he's done there now. They've completely played out the arc that he was sort of involved with, and the other actors who have died have had their characters retired (unless you count that bit of Lindsey impersonating Doyle), so I'm pretty sure that he's done.
It was kind of awkward reading it because at least part of that arc was going on when he died.