Hmm... I get what you mean, the original was untouchable... and before I saw it I was seriously ready to hate it. However, I was surprised to discover that it wasn't a remake at all, it was a pretty good film in it's own right, and in fact the original was directly referenced by the characters in the film in (to me) a pleasing way.
I thought it was kind of cool that they called it the same thing (coz it was a job in Italy!), but contrary to hollywood traditions of frame-by-frame remakes, or cheesy gloss remakes, they made a TOTALLY different movie.
I didn't feel it threatened my Englishness nearly as much as I thought it would - a full-on remake with American actors and sensibilities would have been far worse.
And on that note - I truly hated Braveheart.
Whining Mel Gibson re-writing other peoples history. What an arse.