I heard about that. I can't see it, personally. Russ is not affable enough to be Laforge as we've come to know him
Agreed. Not bad, especially given he was the last character to be cast for TNG, and was in fact not a part of the original TNG format outline at all. I've even heard stories that he was originally only conceived as maybe being a semi-regular character at best, but that Dorn's performance impressed everybody so much that they immediately bumped him up to regular character status.
What I always wanted to see was Worf kicking ass in a TNG film in a well-prepared and choreographed modern day fight scene. Nemesis would have been the opportunity for that.
That would have been cool. Worf goes all Jason Bourne on some hapless Reman. I would have liked that better than Riker getting revenge on the Viceroy for what he did to Troi.