I dunno. IMHO Gene Wilder brought a definite unnerving edge to the '71 film, and if you get past the gooey music, there's a sense that Willy Wonka's world is hell as a candy factory.
I agree -- I felt that the picture Gene Wilder presented to the gang that was touring his factory was only a molecule-thick facade, and they really did know it. I would have liked to see the children vanish for good, though; I was a law and order type back then.
The thing that surprised me about the book was that Dahl made it very much clearer that Charlie's family was on the cusp of starvation and if Wonka hadn't intervened, they would soon have been found dead in their shack. And I didn't think he picked them out of altruism; there was a calculation there I still don't understand. Finally, I go the feeling that he had included the other children to give Charlie a very clear idea of what happened to dissidents in his world. I don't think a lot of people will like it, but the new movie if it is true to the book at all will find a definite audience when it goes to DVD.