understand why the pitch was rejected: it seems to be about vastly boosting the collateral damage and letting traumatization do the work of characterization, with Tim bouncing from one catastrophe to the next and handed from one psychotic mass murderer to another

This is the Didio regime, remember? In his eyes, what you describe is a recipe for excellence.

My problem with it is that it is yet another story using Nightwing to make another character look better. Not only is Tim a better candidate to inherit the Batman title, but he's the best of the 3 Robins and chosen by Ras too? I'd love this type of Mary Sue treatment to be given to Dick Grayson for once.

There are stakes other than the fates of countless background ciphers to consider; indeed, I'd say that it's hardest of all to care about the abstraction that is "the civilian populace" as a mass in the average superhero comic. It's only a little easier to care whether Tim will break under Ra's and his minions, insofar as he really can't break completely and remain the protagonist.

It has a great deal of conceptual strength, and it's made glass-clear what Thomas sees in the character. It's just that his proposed execution comes across as too overt, too unsubtle, too hyperbolic even for the standards of the superhero genre. None of the action he proposes is small enough to let us see the character; none of the injuries done to Tim in the pitched plot are sharp enough that they come across as more than effects of blunt force.

Pitting the three Robins against each other for the fate of Batman is a good idea, though, even if I'm not sure Jason would bother trying to save his former mentor. Unless he'd try to win solely for bragging rights.

In any case, the article was an interesting look at what might have been.