How old money do like the Waynes and Kanes to be? How important to Gotham?

[Tzigone]

I'm honestly okay with anything, but in recent years/decades, them being old money and Gotham royalty seems to have become the norm, and a key aspect of stories like the Court of Owls which have become significant parts of the mythos.

The real question to my mind is whether Bruce is one of the richest people on earth, in the US, or just one of the richest in Gotham. In this regard I prefer him to be someone who's the 'prince of Gotham' but not necessarily that well-known or famous across the globe.

Ah, I dislike the Court of Owls, myself. I like the Waynes rich, and having been rich long enough that Thomas is at least third-generation rich. My sister has a fondness for The Gates of Gotham (she liked the degree of historicity in the architecture/engineering, I think). I definitely don't want the Waynes power players in the colonial era, but emerging in the Gilded Age is cool. I prefer the Waynes not as Gotham Royalty, but as a family that regularly showed up in the society pages, along with many others, in the early 20th century. Bruce should not be among the richest in the world. I do not like him (exclusively) funding the JL at all - I dislike him having that power over them or them having that obligation to him. While his money is obviously very important, I'm not fond of "I'm rich" being his superpower.

I guess I'm in the minority in that I don't like all the secret societies or 'Gotham was cursed from birth" or that crap. I like it an ordinary city with ordinary problems (police and government corruption, mob bosses, street crime, poverty), etc., albeit to a higher degree. Frankly, I've gotten more and more distasteful of the "hellscape Gotham" attitude that's so very established now. It makes Bruce doomed to fail and mean that nothing ever gets better. And every so often a writer comes along who wants to one-up the previous level of badness or project it back even further into history, and further establish its terrible state as sort of a constant of the universe.