I can't say that it comes as a shock that the Seventh Doctor is the third to finish. He has the fourth fewest episodes of any Doctor so that does tend to put him in an obvious place for an overall finish.
As for the Seventh Doctor himself, I think it very important to separate the man from the era. As a personality and Doctor, I'm very close to putting him into second position in my favorite Doctors. Given his similarity to the Second Doctor (who is my number one) that's probably not surprising. I only waver when I consider the nostalgia factor and some genuine fondness for the Fourth Doctor. As much as like the Second and the Seventh, when someone says Doctor Who, the Fourth Doctor is always the first thing that pops in.
But as much as I enjoy the Seventh Doctor, his era was a period of significant ups and downs. Most fans trash Season 24, give passing marks to Season 25 and then start praising Season 26. I'm not so cut and dried. I think Season 24 was actually fair with Dragonfire being the only real bomb and the other three being at least middling with most of the problems due to production or direction. I would actually argue that Season 25 was the best as it had interesting ideas, good acting and a better sense of timing. Season 26 was huge in scope but it tried to cram too many big ideas into too small of a space and suffered as a result. I'm also not a big fan of the Doctor as being all knowing as he is constantly portrayed in Season 26. Like the Second Doctor, I think the Seventh Doctor is at his best when he is reacting and just slightly behind the curve. I like him knowledgeable but still subject to surprise now and then. Looking back on an overall level, Season 24 actually scored better on average for me than Season 26 did.
It is also hard to argue that the Seventh Doctor era does not suffer from production values. They were obviously trying their best and some of it is just the unfortunateness of 1980's television, but you can't deny that the limitation of the budget, to say nothing of the BBC's open attempts to kill the show, don't have an overall effect. You just can't help yourself when you look at something from the Third or Fourth Doctor era and realize that even with the CSO and other limitations they had, some of those stories actually look better and less cheap than those of the Seventh Doctor era. Sometimes that can be overcome, as in Greatest Show in the Galaxy, which I developed a bit of a fondness for, but other times, such as Paradise Towers it just looks bad and things suffer as a result.
Even with the limitations, the Seventh Doctor era has it's charms. There is a lot that doesn't work but there is enough that does to make it worth an overall watch and certain stories worth watching again. Certainly, I'd like to go back and give the extended version of The Curse of Fenric a try to see if it improves the overall story in a significant way. I'm also tempted to go back give Ghost Light a second pass to see if I can overcome Light's damn annoying delivery and appreciate the story for what it is trying to be.
In the end, I think the Seventh Doctor is worth keeping an open mind over. Is it an era that is likely to be up near the top of anyone's list without nostalgia goggles? No. But it is also not the flaming dreck that some fans make it out to be.
Highest Rated Story: Remembrance of the Daleks - 5.0
Lowest Rated Story: Dragonfire - 0.5
Average overall rating: 2.42
Time and the Rani
Paradise Towers
Delta and the Bannermen
Dragonfire
Remembrance of the Daleks
The Happiness Patrol
Silver Nemesis
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Battlefield
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Survival
Dimensions in Time
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