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Really, this is nonsense.  The concept and characterization of Holmes existed long before Downey was hired, long before even Guy Ritchie was hired as director.  Actors do not write their own lines or make up ideas for big action scenes on the spot.  They don't even make the decisions on how they're going to dress, though they might have input.  It's bizarrely naive and borderline monomanical to place the blame on the actor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(2009_film)

 "A lot of the action that Conan Doyle refers to was actually made manifest in our film. Very often, Sherlock Holmes will say things like, 'If I hadn't been such an expert short stick person, I would have died in that' or he would refer to a fight off screen. We're putting those fights on screen."

—Producer/co-writer Lionel Wigram

Producer Lionel Wigram remarked that for around ten years, he had been thinking of new ways to depict Sherlock Holmes. "I realized the images I was seeing in my head [when reading the stories] were different to the images I'd seen in previous films." He imagined "a much more modern, more bohemian character, who dresses more like an artist or a poet", namely Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. After leaving his position as executive for Warner Bros. in 2006, Wigram sought a larger scope to the story so it could attract a large audience, and amalgamated various Holmes stories to flesh it out further. Lord Blackwood's character was developed as a nod to Victorian interests in spiritualism and the later influence of Aleister Crowley. The producer felt he was "almost clever" pitting Holmes, who has an almost supernatural ability to solve crimes, against a supposedly supernatural villain. The plot point, moreover, nods to the Holmesian tale of The Hound of the Baskervilles, where a string of seemingly supernatural events is finally explained through intuitive reasoning and scientific savvy. Wigram wrote and John Watkiss drew a 25-page comic book about Holmes in place of a spec script. Professor Moriarty was included in the script to set up the sequels.

In March 2007, Warner Bros. chose to produce, seeing similarities in the concept with Batman Begins. Arthur Conan Doyle's estate had some involvement in sorting out legal issues, although the stories are in the public domain in the United States. Neil Marshall was set to direct, but Guy Ritchie signed on to direct in June 2008. When a child at boarding school, Ritchie and other pupils listened to the Holmes stories through dormitory loudspeakers. "Holmes used to talk me to sleep every night when I was seven years old," he said. Therefore, his image of Holmes differed from the films. He wanted to make his film more "authentic" to Doyle, explaining, "There's quite a lot of intense action sequences in the stories, [and] sometimes that hasn't been reflected in the movies." Holmes' "brilliance will percolate into the action", and the film will show that his "intellect was as much of a curse as it was a blessing" Ritchie sought to make Sherlock Holmes a "very contemporary film as far as the tone and texture", because it has been "a relatively long time since there's been a film version that people embraced".

VARIETY, MAR 15 2007

Warner Bros. gets a clue
'Sherlock Holmes' to investigate the bigscreen
By Pamela McClintock
It's elementary, my dear Watson -- reimagine Sherlock Holmes as an action-adventure sleuth and you may uncover a new film franchise.
Warner Bros. Pictures is teaming with producer Lionel Wigram to adapt Wigram's upcoming comicbook "Sherlock Holmes" for the bigscreen. Neil Marshall ("The Descent") will helm, while tyro scribe Michael Johnson penned the script.

"Sherlock" is expected to be Marshall's next directing project, as the studio is eager to push ahead. Helmer is currently lensing "Doomsday" for Rogue Pictures.

Exact storyline is being kept under wraps, but creative execs at Warners say they are looking for the "Sherlock" team to reinvent the sleuth and his loyal No. 2 Dr. Watson in much the same edgy way that Christopher Nolan has reimagined Batman for Warners.

Wigram, a former Warners creative exec who oversaw the first three "Harry Potter" pics and who now has a first-look deal with the studio, intends to play up parts of the detective's character that have been largely overlooked when adapting Arthur Conan Doyle's books for other media

Wigram's vision has Holmes losing some of his Victorian stuffiness and being more adventuresome, including playing up his skills as a bare-knuckle boxer and expert swordsman as he goes about solving crimes.

Marshall, Johnson and Wigram are all Brits, like Holmes, who has likely been portrayed on film and TV more than any other fictional character. By some accounts, more than 75 actors have played the pipe-puffing, practical-minded London detective in 200 films and TV shows since 1900.

Studio and Wigram are working closely with the Conan Doyle estate. The Holmes character is in the public domain in the U.S. and most other countries, but there were still rights issues for Warners to work out. Those issues have been closed.

Wigram, who worked on the "Harry Potter" pics while at Warners, developed his "Sherlock Holmes" comicbook as a selling tool for the movie. Comicbook will likely be published to coincide with the release.

Marshall was last in theaters with "The Descent" from Lionsgate.

He and Johnson and repped by Paradigm.

http://www.buzzsugar.com/Guy-Ritchie-Reinvent-Sherlock-Holmes-1686160

Guy Ritchie to "Reinvent" Sherlock Holmes
BuzzSugar / June 4, 2008

Oh, he'll still have his sidekick Dr. John H. Watson and his pipe will most likely make appearances, but the Sherlock Holmes for the new millennium will also "be more adventuresome and take advantage of his skills as a boxer and swordsman."

Guy Ritchie has signed on to direct the movie which will be based on Lionel Wigram's upcoming comic book, Sherlock Holmes. As Variety reminds us, "Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Holmes, written in the late 19th century, emphasized the detective's intellectual brilliance and power of deductive reasoning. The pipe-smoking character has been portrayed in more than 200 film and TV shows."

So, let's talk casting. Who should play this new, boxing, sword-wielding Holmes?

[Downey's casting was not finalized until October 2008.]
 
Prodcer Wigram on Holmes
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=53180

"Rereading all the stories, it was clear that the stories are very clever murder mysteries, there's wonderful stuff in them, but they didn't quite have the scale and scope that a big Hollywood event movie needs, so I thought it would be interesting if I could come up with a story that would be true to the books, true to the times, but also would have that sort of scale? The first thing was to make sure that a lot of the action that Conan Doyle refers to was actually made manifest in our film. Very often, Sherlock Holmes will say things like, 'If I hadn't been such an expert short stick person, I would have died in that' or he would refer to a fight off screen. We're putting those fights on screen.

"I basically wrote that story out and then I felt like for the studio to really understand and get what we were doing and get their heads out of that idea in the Deerstalker with a pipe, you needed some sort of visual inspiration, so I hired this wonderful comic book artist called John Watkiss to basically illustrate my story and we produced a small 25 page comic book, and we basically drew Sherlock Holmes. He looked a bit of a mess, he had stubble, he had a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, and he was fighting and doing cool stuff. I think it was the images, as much as anything. I took it to Dan Lin, who was an executive at the time, and said, 'Look at the picture' and he said, 'I get that.' That was sort of the reaction, which was very exciting and then Warner Bros. basically bought that from me and paid for a writer to come on board and do a draft, then we went and did the usual development process where we did a couple drafts and got to the point where everybody felt it was it was a pretty cool movie. There started to be interest and at that point, Guy Ritchie read it and it was one of those things where looking for the definition of what this movie was and how it was going to be different and how it was going to be presented in a different way, I always saw it in my mind, having been a big fan of 'Lock Stock' and 'Snatch' and all that, as the Guy Ritchie version of Sherlock Holmes. I would describe it that way, and through circuitous and serendipitous means, it ended up being the Guy Ritchie version literally, which is fantastic."

It was going to be "Sherlock Holmes as a Bohemian action hero" no matter who played it.  That was the concept from get-go.