Technically sandman was ordinary at the point it would be if he was the one behind ben parker's death. In reality no, ben's death was pretty clear cut in the comic, the only thing related to it that came up later is that Ben Reilly (the spiderman clone) hooks up with this emo looking chick who seems rather hateful/obsessed with spider-man, because she was the daughter of the robber (ben's killer) who died when spidey confronted him.
Aside from the suit being not as smooth as I would think the symbiote would be I think it looks absolutely badass.