Konrad Curze vs. Night Haunter

I've come across a few conflicting accounts of one of my favourite characters from the Horus Heresy: the ill-fated Primarch of the Night Lords legion. I own a few excellent pieces of Black Library literature and it's from these that the conflict arises (if anyone's interested in reading these books, and I highly recommend them, PM me).

A few years back, when I was still actively practising the hobby, I bought a little book called "Lord of the Night" by Dan Abnett. I absolutely loved it because the portrayal of Konrad that it gave was markedly different from any thus far:

*SPOILERS*
an account given by a Night Lord who'd been in cryogenic stasis in the warp since a few hours after Curze's life was taken spoke of of how Curze, rather than simply betraying the Emperor, had his hand forced. Much like the character Kurtz from Apocolypse Now and Heart of Darkness (upon whom Night Haunter was based), Curze had accepted his role as the Emperor's pet monster, the one who was sent in to bring worlds into compliance where all but the overwhelming fear caused by his atrocious terrorist tactics would fail. All went well until this effectively started generating bad PR for the Emperor's Great Crusade, at which point it was decided that Curze had to be punished for fulfilling exactly the task that was given to him in the exact manner that it was expected of him. This culminated in two assassination attempts at the hands of the Imperium, the first of which he escaped before joining Horus' cause (after this escape, he was informed that the home planet he'd kept well-ordered was now in chaotic revolt; this was the alst straw for hi, and led him to obliterate the planet itself via an orbital strike to its core), and the second after the Heresy, where he uttered his infamous last words:

"Your presence does not surprise me, Assassin. I have known of you ever since your craft entered the Eastern Fringes. Why did I not have you killed? Because your mission and the act you are about to commit proves the truth of all I have ever said or done. I merely punished those who had wronged, just as your false Emperor now seeks to punish me. Death is nothing compared to vindication."

He'd grown weary of trying to avoid the unjust sentence his duplicitous father had placed upon him.

NOW:

I'm reading through the Horus Heresy books ATM, and in the short story "The Dark King", wherein the main conflict lies. It supports the usual (his morbid visions of the future and the atrocities he committed) but makes no mention of the Captain Kurtz-esque qualities that "Lord of the Night" introduced. Rather than having him escape the first assassination attempt, it has him wantonly slaughtering his guards while awaiting trial for his atrocities AFTER hearing about the revolt on his homeworld so that he could go and destroy it.

*END SPOILERS*

Now, I get that the second portrayal might seem more in line with the typical representation of Chaos Space Marines, but the reason I loved "Lord of the Night" was because it broke the norm; it showed that even in a seemingly Black vs. White war like the Horus Heresy, there were indeed innumerable shades of grey, and evils committed by both sides rather than just the traitors. The Horus Heresy books, while finally offering a lot of nice detail on that war, seem bent on destroying many of the tenets set up in some truly gripping Black Library books no more than few short years before (another example are the juicy, juicy shades of grey concerning the Dark angels in "Angels of Darkness", which have been "forgotten" in the HH series). In fact, the guy who wrote "Lord of the Night" is one of the people writing the Horus Heresy books, so why they went and changed things less than two years later I just can't understand.

Translation of this wall of text: Why, gW?! Why must you retcon-punch everthing I love?! Why, WHY, WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?!

What I want from you guys is a discussion to share any information you can give me on Ol' Konrad, especially if it's new information published post-2005/6 which speaks of the more martyrish personality he was given in Lord of the Night. Thank you!

Also, remember, PM me if you'd like to read these books, as a fluff-junkie I can't laud them enough.