Roger Moore was in 7 James Bond movies over 12 years while Daniel Craig was in 5 over 14. That doesn't mean two fewer movies in two more years meant a better product. They were both in one great film(1) and one pretty good one.(2)

Does being in two more not good ones hurt Moore? And how much more deviation from the books will happen before they are unrecognizable?

The Bond novels are 60 years old at this point, there seems little reason to compare them to the films. They are snapshots in time, the way Ernest Hemingway novels are, but unlike Hemingway people still care about Bond, much like they care about Scrooge. That means more fans will read the books.

Yet even Ian Fleming fell under the sway of the films. Bond became more like Sean Connery in the later books - he suddenly became Scottish. The films became the thing and the tone of the films changed as actors did. Connery was wry and self-aware, Moore was confident, Dalton was like the Bond in the short stories such as A View To A Kill, Brosnan was a super soldier, and Craig was a somber and dangerous.  

So who will history treat better? Moore looked the most like Bond in the books, there is no question about that, and I was firmly anti-Craig when he was announced - blonde, too short, not Clive Owen.

Yet I now believe he is the best Bond of the films. Better than Connery, better than Moore, even better than Pierce Brosnan, who was dream casting for the role.

NOTES:

(1) The Spy Who Loved Me and Skyfall.

(2) For Your Eyes Only and Casino Royale. Casino Royale would be great except the overdone overlong over-expositioned torture scene is the kind of thespian vanity that actors and directors love, and it probably got a free pass in editing due to that, but it stops the movie cold. Just go get a sandwich and come back and it will still be going and you wouldn't have missed anything.