I’ve read a lot about the Bond movies from a casting / production angle and it’s very interesting how they were going to go with a different bond over Moore in the early 80s but Connery did “Never Say Never Again” which he played Bond due to some rights loophole it wasn’t part of the Bond franchise and in a panic they went back to Moore who was getting way too old. Dalton got a shit deal as Bond since he never got a 3rd movie due to long delays related to the a big rights issue after one of the heads of the franchise died. I think License To Kill was the last Bond movie that many of the original guys behind the scenes worked on. They say with Bond the third movie for the actor is when they really get it together (Goldfinger, World Is Not Enough, The Spy Who Loved Me, Skyfall) and Dalton never got that 3rd movie which I’m guessing would have been Goldeneye.
Also interesting to note that pretty much every Bond casting choice got an initial negative reaction from the fans. From Connery (he was Scottish, not British!) all the way to Daniel Craig (He’s Blonde! Bonds not Blonde!) and to think James Brolin almost played Bond is crazy.
Boy, I'm gonna get long winded here, but I'll start at your first:
Kevin McClory Co-wrote Thunderball with Ian Fleming. Due to lawsuits between Fleming and the Broccolis/Saltzman (the movie producers), McClory retained ownership of SPECTRE, and a co-ownership of the Thunderball story and its use on film - but ONLY that story. So he worked for two decades to get a remake of Thunderball made, which is what "Never Say Never Again" was. And he tried to do it AGAIN in the early 90's, this time with Dalton, but that failed. He ultimately sold the rights to Sony, who in a long-drawn out deal trying to clean up the Spider-Man rights, traded their Thunderball and Casino Royale rights (the only other story the Broccolis had no rights to) in return for MGM rescinding any Spider-Man film rights they had. Fuck, anyway...
So, as I said, For Your Eyes Only should've been Dalton's first, but Moore came back. When word about "NSNA" got out with Connery, Dalton was out of the question - Cubby Broccoli was adamant they had to bring Roger Moore back, so they did. And while neither movies are all that great, Octopussy made more money, so they technically "won". But then Moore came back for "A View to A Kill" at 58 and any goodwill was gone after that shit.
Dalton got fucked. My Dad hated his Bond, but I loved it. There was a third film being written, but MGM ran into financial issues (not their first time); later on, the soon-to-be new owners of MGM ran into problems financially and tried to build capital by pre-selling international TV rights to the Bond films at a low rate without the Broccoli's permission, as they would be denied profits from that while being the true rights holders. MGM-owned United Artists only had a specific distribution deal with them going all the way back to '62. That locked them up in court for years and when it was done, Dalton walked away. No script was ever set in stone though. It was changed multiple times from multiple writers, and none were like Goldeneye.
Yeah, Brolin, Sam Neil, even Adam West had been approached for the role over the decades. West was famous for telling the producers outright that Bond "should always be British". I don't even buy into the "Bond should always be white" thing - to me, just get the best actor and don't change the soul of the character, I could care less if you get a black or white man - but Bond should probably be British heritage.
One last thing while I'm rambling (God, I need a concert soon): Fleming hated Connery's casting. He was against it from day one and told Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman such, but after seeing Dr. No, he admitted he was wrong and wrote Bond's father into the books as being of Scottish heritage. Funny, how an actually successful man without a Twitter account could let the whole world know he happily ate crow...