I liked both Burkes, but Mitchell Ryan was always a very formidable presence in film and TV, including later soaps, and is so much stronger in the show's first year-plus than George. They were invested in Ryan and it showed. I always thought Burke should've come back for revenge, given the open question of whether Barnabas had crashed his plane. (I had envisioned him resurfacing on a revival as some ancient tycoon out to destroy Barnabas for what his adventures led to for Vicki.)
The portion near the end of '67, right before 1795, where everything is coming apart and Barnabas is out to murder Julia and she's on the run, Carolyn is his thrall, etc. was terrifying to me as a kid watching on Sci-Fi. It felt like anything could happen and it was extremely tense episode to episode. I don't know how much of it was from the original draft of the storyline, in which Barnabas would've killed Julia before being vanquished himself. I also identified with David at that age (I was about the same age) and he was on heavy rotation later at that point because he was on to Barnabas - I didn't know what would happen to anyone, the kid included.