Agreed that his Horrible Secret was bizarrely out of the blue, but I always gave points to the writers and Siddig for doing their best to work with it; I wound up enjoying a lot of the episodes directly related to said secret.

I always liked Bashir too; season 1 Bashir is rough, but he's a changed man by season 3.  God help you, though, Zack, when it comes time for "The Passenger."