...would you want the beloved, very successful guy you replaced in a job hanging around the workplace talking about the good old days, while you were trying to get work done and move the company forward through difficult times?

I sure as hell wouldn't.

Spurrier will be a great promoter of the Gator brand, a brand he was instrumental in developing.  It's not a competition between past and present, and I don't think he would be so shallow as to make it one.  He is there to tell people he is a lifelong Gator, that he loves the Gators, and that the brand is alive and well and winning championships.  He's a promoter, not a detractor.