I wish we had seen more of the backstory. (I suppose a million fics have been written of it. I wonder if any of them are any good?) The little tidbits in the Codex were tantalizing. If his main companions were Leliana and Morrigan, I could see him having been pulled in different directions than the Warden was able to push them. But I agree: it's a testament to his strength that he got as far as he did as the only Warden, as little as he seems to believe in himself.

(Fortunately, I played a little bit of Awakening not long after finishing DC, and Alistair's cameo near the beginning was just the antidote my fangirl heart needed.)