Locke's undeniably more 'cool' when he's in control and spreading his wisdom, and he hasn't a chance to express that side too often since things went awry in that way in the middle of season 2, thanks to the button's ambiguous importance and Ben's status. Since then, he's mostly been a detached-from-the-group crazy badass and hard-to-understand loose cannon whose coolness isn't apparent if you're not on his side, or emo-Locke looking for acceptance, or angry-Locke looking for direction. They're all parts of his character though, and I wouldn't want rid of them either, as a one-dimensional character is rather tiring, but it's regrettable that Locke doesn't get to express his cool, calm and collected side more often. I think that's why I like his scene with Jack so much (excluding the second half the of the hatch storyline) — he always lets his cool controlled side come to the fore, and Jack can't stand being talked to like that one iota.