Smallville didn't need a sudden move on though - it's finding the proper reasons and motivations behind that moving on which is what series 8 is about. With the proper reasons, and motivation, with the correct heartaches, and tragedies, you really make Superman. It wouldn't actually be the Superman of the comics, but just like DC comics, various incarnations of the Superman mythos have been set in different worlds (as exemplified by Crisis on Infinite Earths, but referenced much earlier), Smallville in effect sets itself on it's own world. This allows things to be similar, characters to be there - but gives you the scope for difference. Superman of Earth 1, and the Superman we know today are very different, as was Superboy of Earth whatever. They bring different legacies, different MO's, sometimes different powers - but the moral beacon, is there. How it got there is the ignored but important bit.

Which is why I think sometimes Smallville gets too raw a deal from the cannon brotherhood, while sometimes losing itself in the freedom a new mythos allows. It's both good and bad in other words.

In some ways, it bugs me that Dean Cain was used for Vandal Savage - because they could have had a mini-Crisis, with the Superman crossing into Clark's world. It would have been ace - though DC would probably have had a fit at the very thought.