intp wrote:

So anyway, my question is as follows: I have seen numerous references on the Internet to characters like "Gates" and "Chameleon Girl" who were never part of the 80's continuity.  Does this mean that DC has yet again rebooted/screwed with the Legion's background?  I guess I'm wondering if the following statement is valid: The Legion has been restored to some point during the second Levitz run (which went from LSH v.2 # 284-325 and LSH v.3 # 1-63).  If this is not the case, I probably won't even bother picking up Levitz's new run, as I had originally planned on doing.

  
I would not say that they've been exactly restored to some specific point in Levitz's second run, but it's pretty close IMO.  I found when reading the Johns and Levitz "Retroboot" Legion it's best to not think to hard about how they fit with the pre-Crisis continuity.  With the Johns run it felt more like he was interested in restoring the Legion to Superman mythos, rather than specifically restoring the 80's Legion.  Levitz has felt much more like he's trying to write his 80's Legion, but he's also saddled with new continuity that Johns established.  One bit of that continuity really damaged the first 6 months or so of his run. 

Those references stem from the events of Legion of Three Worlds, where the Retroboot Legion met the Archie and Threeboot Legions.  That series established where the three Legions fit into continuity, and at the end certain members of the Archie and Threeboot Legions chose to remain with the Retroboot Legion.  Hence you get Gates showing up in Levitz's new run. 

Overall, the revival has produced two great stories - the Levitz/Giffen Annual & the Action Comics arc from Johns & Gary Frank - and a very fun slice of continuity porn in Legion of Three Worlds.  The rest has been largely somewhere between "just OK" and very good IMO.