Oh, absolutely. Faith listens to Giles as is shown in the next episode. It was never about any kind of democracy--Kennedy is shut down immediately and they go with Faith/Giles plan. Giles second-guessed her decisions dating back to S4 and there are various hints at it instances in S7 (regarding Spike, etc) and like I mentioned before about some curious edits in S7, they cut out the Ben reference, a blatant instance of him going behind her back. So yeah, him questioning her and the others siding with him isn't new area.

*shrug* I don't think they did make her an uberbitch in S7. To me, she's perfectly in character given what just came before it. She just paid the price for *not* listening to her instincts and took the girls to the Vineyard. She didn't think they were ready, but she listened to Wood. It all turned to hell, so it makes perfect sense that she wouldn't back down from something she believed in. She was willing to discuss what strategy to use, but they weren't hearing it. Buffy getting over her self doubts and fatalism was pretty much the point of S7.

Of course the Scoobs and Potentials had reason to be scared, so it's not quite so simple to label them as horrible bad guys (though I am of the opinion that if they didn't like it, they should have been the ones to leave).

IDK It's definitely a strange, prickly season.

The Faith spinoff didn't go because Eliza chose to do Tru Calling. The other idea was a sort of Slayer school sort of thing. Truth be told, I'm glad neither went ahead.