There is no way TNG can be fun so long as Counselor Troi is aboard. Talk about *yawn* And yes, Pulaski livened that show up greatly. Such a shame they got rid of her.
They traded in irascible for beautiful hair. Terrible, terrible.. though it's nice Picard ended up with her eventually, even though she will never be dressed as a christmas tree ornament and making him beautiful meals and babies. Well they did make one baby in the books but it was so awful I had to start skipping all those parts and I'm not even sure if its been born yet. I'm thinking maybe it was named after his nephew?
What I read/heard about Dr. Pulaski was that her personality was too reminiscent of Dr. McCoy's and wasn't a good fit with that particular crew. I also heard that Diana Muldaur was treated quite awful by the TNG cast, which I found hard to believe at first, but admittedly the TNG cast is a bit clique-ish and they apparently resented Gates being replaced. It's too bad because I thought she brought much needed conflict to TNG and she was more interesting than Crusher.