Now, as a Troper, I'll be one of the first to tell you that Tropes Are Not Bad, and neither are Slendertropes. Stuff like screwing with cameras and Proxies have been around the Mythos for almost as long as it's been a thing. Other tropes, such as spamming the Operator symbol around everywhere to indicate it's a Slenderseries you're watching, are more recent things, especially since Slender: The Eight Pages became a thing (Hint, folks, those notes you keep finding? They belong to a certain Mr. A. Krailie, and he'd dearly love them back). Both of those categories have earned a good amount of ire from some Slenderfans, and for good reason - the Slenderverse is limited, and even with the Fear Mythos as a branching-off from it, it's still becoming WAY too canon for its own good. There's too many things people expect to happen in a Slenderseries now, and too many tropes that keep being used too much.
This is a problem.
See, the Slenderman Mythos is what we like to call "Chaotic Fiction". That means it's a fictional world that isn't set in stone, that changes with each adaptation, that can be interpreted multiple ways. Much like the concept of a boogeyman or Aesop's fables, the Mythos can be adapted to suit anything you so desire. Could he be good? Sure, why not? Could he be able to climb up walls and trees to get people like some sort of hellishly oversized daddy long legs? Cool, and keep that Slenderman the HELL away from me. Could he be thinking, feeling, and intelligent? Go for it. Could he have violet blood and smell like fresh summer peaches? Well, I and the others are going to laugh our colelctive asses off about that and make a meme about it, but go right the hell ahead, bro. By extension everything related to Slenderman can be readapted. Why not have a Proxy that, instead of being fully mind-controlled, is trying desperately to break free but just can't (has been done quite a few times)? How about instead of a Proxy, you have another monster that's never been seen before that has a rivalry with the Slender One? What about doing a series where the protagonist is actively hunting Slenderman for some reason and show the interaction between those two characters? And lest we forget, Slendy's not just a background element or driving force, he's a character too and that means he needs to have some sort of motive, even if the motive is never known in-game and kept secret to all but the creators. A flat Slenderman that doesn't do any of his own acting is boring; a Slenderman that is actively influencing things in several ways for some reason known only to himself (and maybe any Proxies, if the story has them) is far more interesting because it leads to more interaction between characters and lends a LOT more credibility to any horror or tension you're trying to build. And I mean, come on, there's gotta be a reason he decided to come out of the forest and chase your protagonist, otherwise why would he even bother?
Now going back to WhisperedFaith a moment. I don't like it just because the Rake's in it instead of Slendy, despite how cool a monster the Rake is. I don't like it because it's in the Slenderverse either; it could be a Fearvlog for all I care and I'd still love it, or even a vlog connected to its own Mythos. I like WhisperedFaith because it tells its story well and has a good idea of what pacing is. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) to know just how many Slendervlogs and blogs are out there with poor pacing and poor storytelling. Not everyone's made to be a writer or vlog-creator, and nobody is born with the natural ability to write good (even if they're born with the right creative drive, aptitude, and type of brain to do so). I didn't get to be a good author by just willing my stuff to be good, I got there with practice. Just because I've been told I have a talent for writing doesn't mean anything in terms of how hard I worked to hone that talent into something even better.
So what makes WhisperedFaith succeed where so many smaller Slendervlogs fail? Well, it helps that in WhisperedFaith, you know something's... off... from the get-go, but it doesn't outright state what and it's not all "Oooohhhh cryptic bullshit! Ask me what it means, ask me what it means! 8D" from the start. Yes, it uses similar cliches to Slendy-centered stories, but in the end it's not about mysterious groups of people (though there is one in it) or creepy cryptic bullshit. It's about a kid wrapped up in a mystery that involves a monster chasing him oh and there's this group of people involved with said monster too.
See, my issue with most Slenderseries, despite how much I love 'em God bless, is the fact that there's too much crypticness and not enough scary for the sake of just being scary (which it should be). It doesn't always need to be about Proxies or groups of people or mysterious symbols and codes (I'm looking at you Marble Hornets). What it is about is Slenderman, the monster, and it should be about that. Not enough vlogs are focusing on Slendy as a character; his role as a scary unknown variable that is out to get you keeps being doled out to other antagonistic characters (I'm looking at you HABIT, Observer, and others), and that's an issue. I think if more series took the approach that WhisperedFaith does, and made it more about Slendy himself actively wanting/needing something from the protagonist (give him a motive, why's he after this random person?) and going out of his way on his own to get it, it may work a bit better. What's objectively creepier, some weird tall thing waiting outside for you to falter and leave the house, or some masked freakazoid telling you that some weird tall thing is standing outside waiting for you? The monster should attack the protagonist, unless for some reason it cannot and happens to have people for that. In fact, that's what Proxies originally were - Mind-controlled Slenderman extensions he could use to interact with targets in ways he otherwise couldnt, or to keep tabs on his targets while he was away doing... SlenderThings. They are not and never were there to be Slenderman. Slenderman is there to be Slenderman.
The point I'm trying to make here is, a good horror series (and by extension, a good Slenderseries/FearSeries/horror ARG) should function on, "unknown creepy thing is after me", not on "unknown creepy group of people is after me and there's a monster there too." No horror film ever benefitted from having a monster that doesn't do much. For example, the Friday the 13th franchise is about Jason Voorhees, despite the fact that his mother was the killer in the first film. In every other film, said mother is relegated to mythos lore and Jason is the bad guy. This is arguably for the best, because Jason Voorhees is an active monster that is more interesting than his mother is, despite the fact that her memory/ghost has acted as a guiding "conscience" to Jason in the past. Friday the 13th, the first in the series, is therefore a "prequel" film of sorts to the legend and mythos surrounding Jason Voorhees, not the legend of his mom because she's not the primary focus of the series. A good Slenderseries (or Rakeseries or Fearseries) should do the same thing and focus on the monster, NOT on the collective of people around the monster. Just because a group of creepy folks worked for TribeTwelve does not mean it will also work for your series, and just because Proxies worked for Marble Hornets does not mean it will work for your series. Furthermore, those series are protected by the Grandfather Rule - if someone or something was a pioneer of something, or did it first, it's still cool for that thing/person and only that thing/person. That's why I give those series a pass - they were there first. Just like it's still okay for the Joker to let out an evil, crazed laugh, it's still okay, for example, for Marble Hornets to have Proxies and cryptic bullshit. But newer series need to bring new ideas to the Mythos, or this Mythos will fail to thrive.