That "original" costume didn't show up until her sixth appearance. In the first five stories she was an elegantly dressed femme fatale.

Yeah, I've always really liked the "pre-costume" original appearances as well.

Serious question, again as an outsider on the Romita costume...I really don't see that much difference between a black bodysuit and a primarily gray one (I know there are some other differences, but overall they both feel pretty simple).

If Romita had drawn the "Miller" version back in the day but in his artistic style and same hair he used for his original version, and Miller the "Romita" version (and likewise with his updated hairstyle), do you think this would have changed the survey results? Maybe the belt, collar, etc. are bigger differences than I'm thinking, but I wonder how much the "Romita touch" may influence this.

(edit: I'll respond to my own question...I suspect this is a "skintight black outfit head-to-toe crowd )

On Russian naming conventions, the patronymic is the designation of the father's name, i.e., if a guy is named, say, Vladimir Volkov, and his dad's name is Ivan, he'd be referred to as Vladimir Ivanovich, where Ivanovich is the patronymic - and it's part of his official name, so it's used in ID documents, etc. It's also the polite way to refer to somebody. If Ivan Volkov has a daughter, Katarina let's say, she would be called Katarina Ivanovna.
In the Black Widow's case, 'Romanoff' is supposed to be her last name. The more correct rendering of that surname would be Romanova - which is the female form, as Russian (and several other Slavic languages) have gendered renderings of surnames. The male form is Romanov. The "-off" ending is an old-fashioned and now largely discarded way of rendering Russian and other Slavic names that have the "-ov" suffix, although back in the 1960s when Black Widow was introduced, it was still very widely used.
As for Natalia/Natasha, Natasha is the diminutive form of Natalia, kind of like Susie is for Susan. However, Natasha is often a given name at birth - although I'm not certain how common that is among Russians. It is among other Slavic peoples, e.g., in Croatia it's a fairly common name among women, while there's far fewer women who are named Natalia.

I don't recall Miller's Black Widow redesign being especially highly regarded by most people.  People who branded him a genius for his work on Daredevil were probably more impressed by how he handled the Kingpin and Bullseye without redesigning them.  Is the Year One Catwoman redesign known to be Miller's and not Mazzucchelli's?

Gonna go with this look, because it's what she was sporting when I first started reading comics; and we all know that whenever we respectively started is always the best!

And can someone please explain the Natasha Romanoff / Natalia Romanova thing?  I've ignored it for decades, just chalking the difference up to Russian vs. English translation, but I just decided that's not a satisfying answer...