I'm confident saying it's safe to assume that's a total misrepresentation of what happened, given we actually know he was a last minute replacement for an actor who played the part entirely differently. A lot of what we see on screen, in the final episode, was an obvious result of the actor himself playing the part in a way he chose... quite frankly in a way consistent with how I've seen him play numerous similar villainous/unscrupulous roles in his career, which played very much the same way. I see nothing in it to suggest there was a push to make this specific representation somehow more inappropriately stereotypical, & imho, it's a reach to accuse it of that.
Anyhow, differing character interpretations aside, having just now seen it, that makeup job robs a lot of the performance from Rappaport imho & made it seem hamfistedly & deliberately demonish. He's clearly aiming for a more menacing or hardened type villain already, something that is more traditionally in line with a Star Trek villain TBH, & good though it was, I think Rubinek adds something realer to it, something more truly sociopathic, which gave it a different & more nuanced emotional tone.
On performances alone, I'd hasten to say that if Rappaport's went to air, it might have been a less memorable episode, because the character would've been like so many other villains of the week... just another Baran, Kelsey or Bok. One of the things I liked about TNG was that some of its villains didn't come off in the same way TOS villains did. They'd evolved a bit more, to be a more authentic kind of villainy, & Rubinek is one of the main examples I look back on, which showcased that.
