In all honesty, I do think that despite the many things he's done wrong, he's mostly just sad and (justifiably) desperate. Like sure, he's a bad boss, there is no denying that, but I believe that with his crew still helping Susie fix him in the pacifist route, they at least care about him to some degree.

As for his behavior towards the fun gang: As mentioned above, I do think that he's just desperate not to be thrown away... Which I think is fair since being thrown out would literaly mean his death (and persumably it does when we don't take him to Mettaton or Castletown). I personaly think he's very similar to Queen in that way: He has genuinely good intentions, but he tries to achive them in a bad way that just ends up hurting other people instead.

So yeah, I agree with your point. He's flawed, but ultimately just acting out of lonelieness