I have been thinking though…spectre told me that he had been planning to write a Casino Royale reboot set in 1960 or so. That would have been cool, but one could also have possibly gotten Quantum in there as well. Quantum as a sequel worked and we could get our first glimpse at Spectre (When Bond is spying on their meeting he sees a mysterious man masked in shadow. Obviously this is Blofeld). Rather than being about water it could be oil or something else. Bond and Camille fight side by side and form a bond of friendship.
Than you get the Connery films. Some parts have not aged particularly well (Bond essentially raping the woman at the sauna in thunderball, Pussy Galore being converted to straightness, the whole race bending element in YOLT) but I do think that the general idea can work (hell if you want to indulge the conspiracy nuts have Oswald be a Spectre agent).
Fittingly Spectre is also the force that begins and ends Bond’s career. His defeat of Spectre is the Swansong that allows him to finally retire