Nope. You've pretty much summed up the arc beautifully. James Marsters says that the writers did screw up the initial point of the show by making Spike the ultimate outsider on a show that celebrated outsiders, but I personally think it made it all more interesting when they had to face that their heroes had real, ugly failings, and not just cute, quirky ones.

The only place where I disagree with you is that I liked comic relief S4 Spike just as much as the other iterations.

Carry on.