Interesting take on issue of Scream and the films of the era.
My quick reply is I think there is room for films like Scream. Viva la deference.
It's just one film. But true, it's success spawned more films of the type... the forever film trend of most producers chasing dollars, not art, originality or tradition.
I wasn't a big fan of Scream, but I mildly enjoyed it. I liked certain parts, like the opening, but mostly didn't like the 'end-part' of the ending (not the outcome, the execution). The end was more akin to bad 80's horror; and a slice of the 90's 'killer that won't stay dead' trope... but it was a film about horror tropes, so I guess it's 'par for the course'
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You're not wrong... Scream was written by Kevin Williamson who created/wrote Dawson Creek, Vampire Diaries and I Know What You Did Last Summer. However, I didn't find Scream overly soap-opera-ish. It just had a little more meat and character development to me.
I appreciated different horror 'types' and 'trends' through horror history, like Dracula (1931), King Kong (1933), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1954), The Exorcist (1974), Halloween (1979)… I appreciate character development as essential for certain horror films, and my usual preference. Films can specializes away from it, like say Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I was no fan of late 70's-through-80's hack repetitious boobs/kill/gore machine. I was happy to see the era produce films like Alien, The Thing, Poltergeist, and The Fly.
Suffice is to say, Scream was just one film to me. I'm glad it was different, and that it helped add finance to more horror -- and you hope to original horror, but everyone knows it will spawn copies too. Some folks are happy Halloween (1979) spawned twelve Friday the 13th films... people like different stuff.