"Pathetico" may be going a bit too far, but his dictatorship of Palombia was pretty rickety and ridiculous, and in L'homme qui ne voulait pas mourir he seems to spend most of the story bickering with his henchmen. I guess I see what they were going for (Fantasio is characterized by his imagination, Pathetico by his... failures?), but I don't really see how it's preferable to the original in any way.*
As for Aux Sources du Z, ten-to-one says that too will be tossed out of continuity as soon as the next team takes over. (Apparently the PTB considered releasing it in the out-of-continuity "One-Shot" series, but left it in as a #50 anniversary volume.) Also, if you think closely about that tribute, it seems like Spirou biked all the way back to Brussels from the south of France. Hmmm...
* In my ongoing effort to rationalize the Spirouniverse, I've decided that there must be a reason why cousins Fantasio and Zantafio have such similar names. My theory is that Zantafio is the real family name (Eastern European, perhaps?), and that Fantasio is a pen name or nickname chosen by F.