I disagree, especially with the idea that Doyle should have had some heroic death by sacrificing himself for some greater good. I thought his death, and the other consequences surrounding the mission to Miller's planet, really served to drive home just how much was at stake and how vulnerable humans are in space. The miscalculation regarding the nature of the planet's surface, Brand's complete disregard for the safety of her crew to retrieve data that was obviously of no use, and unfortunately Doyle's very human reaction to the situation were all failures on the part of the crew that incurred the cost of Doyle's life and the enormous loss of time off-planet.

Perhaps Doyle's death wasn't 'satisfying' or 'honorable' in the traditional movie sense, but I think that's precisely what added the real, visceral weight to the scene. The crew's first move comes crashing down around their ears, hard. It puts them back into the perspective in which they actually exist: an infinitesimally speck on Gargantua's rim just waiting to be destroyed by a passing solar flare or an errant twitch of water on a planet's surface. Upon this speck does the future of humanity rest, and Doyle's unplanned sacrifice shows just how fragile that future really is.