I agree they could have done tons more with Ronon, though I disagree he was written as a dumb savage. His home world was very modern and he wasn't very people friendly, and preferred action to long explanations, but he was written as an eager solider. The first few eppys he was show more 'savage-like' but that was him learning to acclimate from being a runner to being around modern things again after seven years.

But of course they dd have to delete the one really cool scene about him being an artist.