The reason everybody's taking a pass on Burton these days is because the counter-cultural goth bit is worn out. It was one thing when it was a not-so-subtle subversion of Middle Class Utopian America, but everybody's goth now. Hipster goth was goth before it was cool, you know.
Beetlejuice is the high water mark because it is just freaking BIZARRE, making death and the afterlife anti-climactic and letting Michael Keaton run wild in what has to be his greatest performance. Edward Scissorhands arguably works because the setting is a deeply ironic take on suburban borg housing and hipster housewives (read: desperate before it was cool).
But since then, every gothy or macabre Burton film just feels like it is trying to capture Beetlejuice in a bottle again. For me, the most memorable Burton films since Beetlejuice/Scissorhands would be Ed Wood, Big Fish, and to a lesser extent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What you may notice those films have in common is that they have that creative kookiness but without the dark undertones.
Ed Wood was a clever biopic because it was written and presented in the style of an Ed Wood film itself, and because of a very sympathetic Bela Lugosi character played masterfully by Martin Landau. Big Fish was a tale filled with oddities but again in a different vein than the tired act of death and darkness. Willy Wonka just is what he is, that's why it gets an honorable mention.
But that's the main reason my interest in Dark Shadows is nominal at best: oh look, another Burton/Depp collaboration full of death and darkness. wowee.
