There is a reason Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker worked so well in Nolan's trilogy: it wasn't simply that it was unexpected, or that it was as well conceived as it was executed, it was because it doesn't fit within the Nolan universe. Nolan's stripped down Gotham was always built on an agenda of authenticity partly because Joel Schumacher had thrown all sense of restraint out of the window and that approach was the only conceivable antidote and Burton's villains wouldn't have worked. But Ledger worked so well because he owed something to Burton's grandiose, grotesque vision. The same cannot really be said of the other villains, and it is extremely unlikely in the long-term that any of Nolan's villains will be as memorable as The Joker, or as any of Burton's four main villains. And it all comes down to how well Burton blended the theatricality of the grotesque into his universe, blending silliness and seriousness with a horror genre-like commitment to the overblown. Yes, Nolan did it well with Ledger's Joker, but Burton did it first and for longer.
