Kirk, all the way! If Kirk hadn’t been Kirk, then we’d never have had any of the other series and captains. Kirk was the perfect Starship Captain for 1966, which is what really counts.
Picard could have, and probably would have, made an even better captain than Kirk, had he had a REAL starship to captain. But a REAL starship doesn’t have children on it. He was crippled from the start by the writers’ desires to de-militarize things, and he just never got back on track.
Sisco I rather liked, but I never watched much DS9.
Janeway sucked.
Archer…well, I really expected better things from Archer,and I have high hopes that the writers will get their act together before the show gets cancelled.
First officers…Spock was THE First Officer, none of the rest of 'em count. T’Pol has potential, but I wish that actress could pull off a truly non-emotional Vulcan look, similar to Spock’s. Most of the time, she looks like she’s REALLY pissed off and holding it in badly.
I never got the “Leonard Nimoy’s Spock never showed emotion” thing. He always seemed like he was smiling to me. As much as I hate Tuvok, Tim Russ played a better Vulcan.
Nothing against touchy-feeliness. Janeway’s problem is that she was inconsistent. Sometimes she was very cautious, while other times she was reckless. It’s like she was making her decisions with a Magic 8-Ball.
MsBatt makes a good point about Picard. Patrick Stewart was handicapped by the premise of the show. The attempt to de-militarize Starfleet can be blamed on Gene Roddenberry, who became strongly pacifistic (and a little nutty) in his later years. This is why the Enterprise-D was an interstellar ocean liner with civilian spouses and kids running around all over the place.
By the time TNG ended Roddy was dead, so we see the military aspects being played up in DS9, Voyager, and the Next Generation movies. (I don’t think that we’ve seen any kids on the Enterprise-E, have we?)