For the record, my ranking of captains is as follows:
- Picard
- Sisko
- Kirk
- Archer
- Janeway
Picard is the one Star Trek Captain they really got right - he's the one who knows protocol and gives the orders for the lower-ranking crew to do stuff for him, rather than going down and doing the stuff himself as most of the other Captains think they're obliged to do. Patrick Stewart brings a good dollop of gravitas and sophistication to the role, and of course nobody can dislike his character arcs with Q, Data and the Borg.
Sisko isn't as good as Picard, but better than the other three because, after Picard, for me he has the best development arc, and like Picard he largely stays in his ready room and gives orders to his junior officers (though sometimes he can't resist getting stuck in... and his diplomacy skills could do with a lot of work). Also one thing I like a lot about DS9 is that not all the main characters are in each episode, or play major roles in each episode, they simply do what would be expected of their roles and then disappear, and Sisko is no exception to that. He doesn't hog each episode as the three Captains below him often do.
Kirk has a lot of camp and silly scenes and wins pretty much every fight he gets into in TOS, but at least he doesn't know how to do pretty much everything else as well as the two below do.
Archer starts becoming the all-conquering hero pretty quickly during
Enterprise, and is too hot-headed a lot of the time to be taken seriously as a Captain, but at least he still needs Phlox to explain medical stuff for him, and is beaten up as often as he beats other people up. And he has Porthos, everyone loves Porthos.
Janeway isn't annoying per se, but for me she's the worst of the Captains. She makes particularly bad decisions, she seems able to perform the roles of Ship's Counsellor and Chief Engineer just as well as that of Captain, and is particularly eager to jump in and do things herself when she should be staying with her ship and sending Chakotay down to oversee away teams.