The original story is just as bad.

I didn't read the book but just read the synopsis on wikipedia and Morgan Creek was right, there is no way that original ending would have made for a compelling ending. No way. And what's with this insane theory in the book:

The final chapter of the novel, an epilogue, has Kinderman at a burger-bar with his faithful partner, Atkins. Kinderman explains to Atkins his thoughts and musings of the whole case and how it relates to his problem of the concept of evil. Kinderman ends by concluding that he believes the Big Bang was Lucifer falling from heaven, and that the entire Universe, including humanity, are the broken parts of Lucifer, and that evolution is the process of Lucifer putting himself back together as an angel.

I think us fans tend to romanticize these botched masterpieces, like Dominion but they aren't botched at all, and they aren't masterpieces either, they're actually quite bad and the studios were right in freaking out.