And with O'Brien, we had two TNG characters serving on DS9. I wonder if any other TNG character could've fit in? Let's say Dr. Pulaski.
She had the no-nonsense and authoritative approach. She'd have fit in nicely.
Oh, Bones 2.0 would've been awesome!
Instead we got the EMH, Bones 3.0 and yet nobody made a stink over 3.0.



It was purely to boost ratings, just like the decision to add the Defiant was. However, as with the Defiant, the ratings ultimately did not increase in any significantly appreciable manner. Ratings slowly declined with every new season of DS9.
Correlation isn't always synonymous with causation. High ratings do not equal quality by default. Ratings does equal the number of people who see and ultimately keep returning to it because they either really like it... or really hate it and want to tell everyone else don't bother, which they likely won't one way or the other anyway... But is it still any good, just cuz? Ask all the smokers 50 years ago except most of them died 20 years ago from all those nice lung diseases they got from their threepacksaday that everybody loved. Then again, it's often true that poor ratings means a poor show, but not always. Then again, all art is subjective.