You know @randomwanderings, I've been thinking about your comment all day, and I think Barnes is one of the primary reasons why I like Die Hard 2 so much. There is no Barnes character in Die Hard. Leslie Barnes, in a way, is John McClane minus the combat ability.

Here's a guy who survives the massacre of an entire SWAT team, goes door-to-door with McClane to track down where Stuart and his men are hiding, comes up with multiple ideas for how they can thwart Stuart's takeover of the airport, manages to successfully implement the one Stuart's men didn't plan for, and keeps putting himself in harm's way long after any ordinary desk jockey would have called it quits. Barnes is a goddamn badass, and without his ingenuity a hell of a lot more people would have wound up splattered all over the runway.

Sure, in a straight-up fight he'd get his ass kicked--he has none of McClane's fortitude, stamina, training, cop instinct, or plain New York stubbornness. But put him in a battle of wits with literally anybody else in the movie and he dominates the playing field. I hope he got one hell of a Christmas bonus that year. :)