Starbuck, Boomer and Colonel Tigh were cool guys. I liked Commander Adama as well. It's sad they made Tigh an alcoholic, white or not.
I think I must've been around 8 years old when I first saw Battlestar Galactica. The special effects, the space battles and the Cylons were so exciting. It took me a while to pay attention to the fact that the Cylons actually looked as if they had a guy wearing all black track pants with a robot costume on top inside, which was practically the case. The way they walked wasn't always very robotic.
The reboot was much darker. The original had stuff for kids like Muffy the Daggit who was played by a chimp called Evie.
surprisingly, I did not know that bit of trivia about the daggit. Glen Larson, the exec producer, was a busy guy at the time as he also had Buck Rogers going. Both series took a hit when the strike came, and reformatted their second season with disastrous results.
I don't know what became of the film Richard shot back in the mid '90s, but Richard had some of the last footage of John Colicos, reprising the role of Baltar, back when he was trying to get a series relaunch. His take on the project didn't get picked up, but it did eventually result in the reboot series.