I think that's a pretty cool text -- where the more usual hero story is off to the side, while the one that is central is actually a commentary on the way our tendency to see ourselves as heroes actually diminishes our ability to actually be heroes.

That is a pretty cool reading. I don't know if I'd tend towards it because I love stories about heroes qua heroes too much (though not superheroes! As a classicist I claim there is a difference...), but I don't suppose I could ask you to point out a few scenes/moments/arcs where you think it really comes across? I don't mean that in a facetious 'justify yourself!' way; I'm just curious.

I honestly don't believe it matters one jot what the writers intended (if I ever say something that approaches that please slap me down), because I don't think working that out has any value. I discuss Buffy (ultimately) to understand what it means as a piece of communication in our culture today, not to work out what goes on in Joss's (divine, natch) brain. And like you say "the text still does what it does" - I think there is a goal to be reaching for in terms of finding out what it actually does do (which is why I disagreed with the sense that I thought I got from your post that any event can be read in a multitude of ways with equal merit).

Most people are going to just follow the cues and the expectations they have about heroes and that means they are not going to notice the way the text undermines their own reading.

I will admit, though, that this makes me go hmm...