I think it totally does. Book is about various modalities of intelligence: regular humans, space intelligence, main character (who is obviously different from regular humans), and vampires look fine in this diversity.
Whereas "vampires" immediately call to mind Vlad, Dracula, Twilight, etc. and an entire literary tradition of the last century, which Blindsight has little to do with. There's the riffing on crucifixes with the right-angle seizures, but that's more cutesy than serious.
It's not the worst decision on Watts' part, but I think you're in the minority in liking it.
as far as I remember, vampires in Blindsight were recovered from some fragments of ancient DNA, and heavily re-engineered, so it matches your type of narrative, and not Dracula type vampires.