Thank you for your words. When I first decided to do this, I did follow the song's pattern, like you pointed out. Then again, it spawned from just having a bit of fun in GarageBand on one of my bouts of insomnia. For all I know, I might not be cut out to do this kind of stuff.
Anyways, I tried to get a bit away from the cookie-cutter feeling more towards the end with the addition of my own chords around 1:35 - 1:54 and the fading and piano overlay at 2:08 - 2:30, or at least I thought I was trying. As far as starting over though, do you suggest I keep the echo theme I'm working with? And what about instruments? I mixed a bit of traditional (Piano, bass guitar, etc) and synth instruments, but does that work usually, or not? And what of the sample I used from the original song (the clanking beat), keep, chunk, or recreate?