Actually, in School Hard, Sheila is one of his first victims

Good point. I sometimes forget about her since Dru was the one who actually killed her, but Spike still victimized her.

I agree that LMPTM is very problematic, but at least in LMPTM Buffy could fall back on the excuse that Spike was a different man because of the soul. She wouldn't have been able to do that earlier. You have a good point about Robin Wood's beating not getting the same attention as Buffy beating Spike in Dead Things.