Dawn was great. I can think of a bunch of Buffy characters that belong on a list of most annoying -like Andrew, Xander, Faith, Willow and Anya. But Dawn? She was great. She was relatable, sympathetic and funny. And she interacted marvellously with Spike, until the writers decided to destroy that. It really pisses me off when people do the big hate-in on Dawn. It's really a baselss hatred. And it's all the weirder considering the show really did have some seriously annoying characters, which people for some reason don't find annoying. BTVS actually had more annoying characters than likable ones, but Dawn wasn't one of them. She was one of the good things about the show and along with Spike she helped to raise the quality when it was declining in the last three seasons.