I'm sure there has, but not a lot is coming to mind off the top of my head. I guess for me continuity = consistency when it comes to long-form storytelling, and I prefer characters and their history to be consistent with what came before.
I know I enjoyed post-Crisis Superman a lot, so maybe that's a good example, but at the time I started reading I did not know he wasn't the original. I might have felt differently if I had been reading pre-Crisis Superman.