Not at first. I don't think it will be much of a different life for chris until the bills roll in. He'll get one month of 'normal' behavior then when the mortgage and utility bills come in he'll screech like never before.
When Barb's in her cozy, cheap pine box, there will be the biggest outpouring of troll-remorse money that chris will ever get, and he'll use that to pay his bills... but it'll just be kicking the can down the street. Worse, chris will get a taste for sympathy money and DEMAND the trolls keep paying his bills, saying they killed his mom or some other ridiculous claim. The money will dry up, chris will go full batshit insane on camera like old chris, the merge shit will be abandoned in desperation to keep the house, and chris will inevitably be evicted due to the health dept, court charges (he'd actually own the house and cars, so the banks would actually have something to repossess)or whatever. chris then most likely ends up being cared for by some tard wranglers who let him couch surf... for a while.
I agree up to a point. The output of sympathy after Barb's death will embolden Chris, much like the care package he got after the fire in 2014 did.
But I don't think he'll want that troll money to simply pay bills, I think he will want to use that money to move out of the hoard for good.
Chris hates living at 14 Branchland Court but is honestly too terrified of Barb to make a run for it while she's still alive.
Even though Barb is now powerless due to her declining health, Chris still fears her due to years of abusive conditioning.
Remember that long dry spell between Bob's death and the fire? That was largely Barb's doing.
Even after organized trolling had ceased and the PVCC imploded for reasons unknown, there were still people keeping tabs on Chris, with Marvin being the most notable among them.
After the Snyder incident, she kept Chris on a tight leash and even forced him out of his own bedroom.
We often joke about Barb spooning with Chris, but that honestly seems more like her idea than Chris's. Bob tried to put a stop to it when he was still alive, but Barb wouldn't let him. I also get this feeling that Chris hated having to spoon with Barb as he got older, especially after he was forced out of his own bedroom in the months leading up to the fire.
Bob was a shitty parent, but he at least tried to help Chris before finally giving up. Barb saw Chris as a nuisance, then she saw him as something to hoard, and now she seems him as a means to pay off her debts.
I think Bob truly did love Chris and did his best to care for him, but was too old and out of touch to help him. A lot of people like to cite Bob putting Chris on the tugboat as proof of being a bad parent, but I think it's proof that Bob cared for Chris and wanted to give him a safety net of some sort since by the time Chris went on the tugboat, it was obvious he wouldn't make it in the real world.
I also believe Bob being estranged from his kids had way more to do with Barb than anything he did.
David and Carol were already leaving the nest and going out on their own around the time Bob met Barb, and David did show up to Bob's funeral in 2011. Carol did not, but we know next to nothing about her.
For all we know, she could be living in another state and couldn't make it to Bob's funeral because of distance.
Cole hated Bob, but Cole is a notorious douchebag and a pretentious hipster. He's not exactly a reliable and unbiased source of information.