Writerly freakouts just mean you're thinking about what you're doing! It's very brave and generous of you to share them with us. I don't have that kind of guts!
OK, I have to confess that I was enjoying vaguely unlikeable Angel ... and maybe that was part of why you switched things. But I also really appreciate that here you have Buffy being a little more conflicted about Spike. For a normal person, her dismissal of him in the previous version was kind of ... not to much sudden as a little too thorough. BUT, this is Buffy, queen of denial, so it wasn't out of character! But I prefer it this way, where she acknowledges that she's having to push him out of her mind.
And -- loved the panties dusting with the vamp! That was hilarious, and fitting.