I'm on my 2nd rewatch through the entire series, currently (though I've seen the first 4-5 seasons a few times), and Malucci is much more entertaining that I remember him being the first time, and I liked him the first time as well. I think he would have been better to keep around than pretty much any of the other S6 additions and they could have done a lot with his character. Yes, he can make stupid decisions but he's really no worse than Doug was in the first 5 seasons, he just never got the chance to be developed in the same way.
The first half of S6, they actually give him some things to do - you can see some really cool moments of him being a good, caring doctor and a complex person - but then the cast got too bloated and they focused too much on Abby (and Luka, to an extent) so Malucci got pushed to the side and I'm honestly a little bitter about it.
(And yes, I may have come to this forum for the first time just to preach about how underrated of a character Malucci is...)
