Personally, I hated "Captain Cardboard" (Thank you, Spike, for that lovely moniker.) when the show was running. Boring, boring, boring, wholesome, boring. I couldn't help feeling that he was an extreme symptom of Buffy's denial of the darkness within herself, representing a normalcy she wasn't made to have. Spike, again, was right when he said she needed a little monster in her man, and I read Riley as an attempt on her part to pretend that wasn't so. The problem with that is of course that I suspect the show wanted Buffy's need for the bad and dangerous in her romantic partners to come across as something unhealthy - hence Riley as the normal, stable boyfriend who offers possibilities for healing - while I just found it fascinating and hot. Riley couldn't hold a candle to either Angel or Spike, and if the producers wanted him to come across as a viable alternative, they certainly went wrong somewhere along the way.

Also, I never understood the Angel/Riley slash. It's existence just leaves me baffled.