1) What would've been the point? It was just a raid intended to damage Fed morale. No way the Breen could've gotten enough forced to Earth to really ravage it without Starfleet or the planetary defenses stopping them.
2) After all he went through, going insane WAS justified for Dukat. And plus you have the Pagh Wraith possession as an excuse as to further insane actions.
3) I'd say the message was that thanks to them NOT being willing to go through with genocide more loss of life was prevented. With the Founders all dead the Jem'Hadar likely would have gone out of control and rampaged all over the place in both the Gamma and Alpha Quadrants. Peace and tolerance > Heartless annihilation.
As for being "old-fashioned", I take that as a compliment. Heck, Alan Moore himself was rather upset when he saw how so many embraced the darkness from works he did like "Killing Joke" and "Watchmen" that he created new lines of comics that openly embraced the wacky 60s fun and proved that with a little intelligent those kinds of stories and tones could be just as enjoyable today as they ever were.
So no, I don't think that darker storytelling = instant win. Quite the opposite, I see it as a fad that's losing it's touch.
Of course, I was being a bit facetious--I know Alan Moore had deep regrets about the trend he began. And I'm on (rather ubiqitous) record as hating what BSG ultimately degenerated into.
At any rate, the "darkness" I look for isn't so much in the destruction itself, but the implications that naturally arise from events not being shied away from. Alan Moore generally dealt with those implications, no matter how unpleasant, much better than his peers, and that is part of why he became something like a comic book god. The other part, maybe even the more important part, is of course the revolution in technique he was a part of, but that's not relevant here.
As an example of a failure to deal with natural implications of events, let's take TOS--in that show, tons of people die, even whole systems and civilizations are routinely prostrated and even annihilated, and half the time they laugh it off, because the death and destruction is just a plot device.
DS9 took bold steps toward actually recognizing the
implications of things, but, like I said, took easier but less reasonable ways out on occasion. Usually, they didn't. I don't need Earth blown up, I just think it seems more reasonable (why no energy dampening weapon? why a suicide attack if it caused no real damage, to one planet amongst 150? why did the Breen even join the war?).
BSG tried to do that and failed because they got their heads lost up their asses, but I have a fervent respect for the attempt.
And to respond specifically to one thing:
I'd say the message was that thanks to them NOT being willing to go through with genocide more loss of life was prevented. With the Founders all dead the Jem'Hadar likely would have gone out of control and rampaged all over the place in both the Gamma and Alpha Quadrants. Peace and tolerance > Heartless annihilation.
Carrot and stick. The Founders probably never would have negotiated if they weren't facing extinction. Just as some say that the Japanese would have remained defiant in the absence of the atomic bomb.*
*This is a heatedly controversial issue which I use for illustration purposes only. I'm fully aware of other explanations of events, particularly the one which places the greatest weight on the Soviet entry into the war.
Finally, of course, I meant the "old-fashioned" comment in good fun.
And Christopher Robin eventually leaves the Hundred Acre Wood and goes away to school. Really.)
