Hey, Beau Bridges is absolutely horrible, but they had to establish who Ben Browder was playing. They stuck O'Neill in the Class A uniform plenty of times.
Cam Mitchell also got screwed over. He thought he was JOINING SG-1, and they've all moved on by this point. Carter is at area 51 (Tapping was on maternity leave), Teal'c has gone off to Jaffa Politics, Daniel has a one-way ticket booked for Atlantis, and O'Neill had already ranked out of the team.
He saved all their asses over Antarctica, they all promised him whatever posting he wanted, and he chose SG-1.
(In reality, Tapping was pissed that she didn't get the team command) (But how the hell was she supposed to lead the team while pregnant?)
Beau Bridges on the other hand, has no bless'ed clue how he wants to play the character. Best I could tell, he was aiming for doddering golly in this episode, and they told him to cut it out.
I also enjoy how Mitchell wants to be friends with Teal'c, and Teal'c views him as an annoying puppy.