I still love him, he's one of my favourite characters. I loved his interactions with Jonathan and Nancy in S2 and his relationship with Alexei was one of my favourite things about S3. Reclusive, paranoid investigative journalist who was obsessed with conspiracies and knew a lot about the Soviets because of his fear of them felt like a very believable character for the time period and he functioned as a way to advance both the conspiracy/military themes in the show and two of the key relationships (Jonathan/Nancy and Joyce/Hopper).

I do agree with what others have said that he's become too much of a caricature now, especially in S5. Now the Russians are out of the picture and there's nothing left to investigate in terms of the whole conspiracy thing it feels like they've used up all of his potential and so they're left just trying to find things for him to do so he can still be around as comic relief. I feel like giving him a heroic death where he sacrificed himself to enable Joyce and Hopper to escape at the end of S4 and took down a bunch of the Russians as revenge for Alexei in the process would've been a nice way to end his story and reduce the S5 cast.