I'd like to see what Craig does as "the finished article" as a 00 through an entire movie. Bond 23 will be that movie.
I think Connery was sharp as a pin in Goldfinger and Thunderball. Still had some way to go in Dr No and then was horribly overweight, greying and disinterested/uninteresting by Diamonds Are Forever.
If Craig nails it in Bond 23 there won't even be a debate. Plus I like his work ethic and he's a relatively humble person which I think adds to his likability.
You're absolutely right, absolutely right, and I think he's already channeling it in the final scene with M.
My reading of the really successful incarnations of the Bond character (IE Goldfinger and Thunderball, not in the way he's written but the way Connery played him) was all about the character's attitude. His "cavalier attitude towards life" as M said to Pierce. It's that same attitude that makes him the most dangerous and enviable man in the room.
Because here's this character in this mixed-up, dangerous, heightened reality that somehow sports a grin and even internal sense of humour about it all.
A character that, for lack of a better word, "gets it."
Perhaps I've become a bit of a cynical fatalist given recent events in my own personal life, but I see Bond as a character who gets just how f-ed up the world is, how betrayals are constant, danger is everywhere, and love isn't worth its weight in gold because of what you might lose. That's why he's such a smooth operator - it's almost as if he sees the joke of it all. He's the opposite of a basket case or an inherently nervous person. He treats all of his iconic, dangerous situations will ease and class because he almost emerges "above" the theatricality of it all. That's why, in a movie of characters and archetypes, he's the biggest one and yet comes away as the coolest cat in the room.
It's as if his entire philosophy on life is "The world is a dark and dangerous place, there's no sense in preoccupying myself with worry over the basic constants of human life, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to have a good time doing my job." That may be an oversimplification, but it's along those lines. I'm leaning toward saying Bond sees the subtle humour of human existence itself, and in every snide comment, arched eyebrow, or throwaway remark, he's taking authority of the tiniest pieces of control human beings are actually capable of.
Apologies if that got a bit more cerebral than I'd intended
.
Back to QoS - I think it's logical to assume a character more in line with, say, Goldfinger Bond (albeit a bit more human, emotional, etc. in light of contemporary cinema) will emerge in Bond 23. The final scene with M is the first indications.
He emerges in, comparatively, a good mood from Yusef's apartment. His statement of her being "right about Vesper" is not made with regret or disappointment, it's like a comical "I can't believe I was so thick about it."
To me, it's all in the way he says "I Never Left." I read some complaininga bout Daniel's botched delivery of the line, that it didn't have the power it should have. And what I'm saying, is that's the point. It's the perfect delivery in line with this new Bond we're anticipating. It's with a certain "I dont' know what you - or I - were worried about."
Because he's been through the ringer that was the CR-QoS arc. Goes right back to what Martin Campbell's thoughts were at the initial CR press conference. Bond has been through the roughest two films, physically and emotionally, of his 22-film life. He's seen the most gruesome of deaths (some by his own hands), the horrors of small-time crooks, the frightening nature of the larger powers in the world, the shattering of his faith in beloved institutions, and the gutting defeat of the worst kind of intimate betrayal.
The Bond that emerges in the final scene (and hopefully 23) I would expect has the attitude of, "what else can I possibly see?" - and thus, a Bond who sees the irony and humour and futility in being a seriously cold bastard will be borne.
. Fair enough ? 
