Good point, about the cloning tech. I still think that the protagonists act more rationally than most TV characters in that they generally don't repeat mistakes, but thats mostly me having very low expectations.

Undoubtedly. And the nature of storytelling prohibits too much rational thinking. It wouldn't have been much of a story if they had made a considered rational judgement on the merits of using the two most valuable minds in the galaxy as part of an elite reconnaissance strike team!

I agree that they are good role models. O'Neil in particular is just what you want in a leader - perhaps more so than the Atlantis guys.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give for Stargate's (approximately) rational characters is that I watched it without ever being utterly disgusted and abandoning it. That is a fairly rare occurrence. When characters behave irrationally -particularly when I get the feeling that the authors are trying to tell me that the stupid behavior is the right thing to do - it totally breaks the experience for me. I can no longer identify with the characters and all interest in the story/show/book fades away. Not even HP:MoR passed that test!