You're right. Darcy is a man transformed for the better at the end. By my lights issue Austen is raising in her first line is that the Bennets project that need onto *every* rich single man (including Mr. Bingley, about whom they're talking here). Whether or not Bingley or Darcy did need a wife, they'd still project their fantasies onto him. That, in part, is what makes them comical :).