I think Garcia actually fit the character Puzo and FFC wrote for him--a second-rate choice to succeed Michael. Garcia was shallow, vapid and vain, a two-dimensional character compared with, say, Sonny and Fredo. As such, he was a perfect fit with a modern Mafioso: an unworthy, self-centered successor to a real Don. This whole thread is beginning to suggest to me something I hadn't thought about before: what was Michael thinking when he decided to let Vincent get close to him and to succeed him? I'm thinking it had something to do with Anthony telling him just moments before Vincent made his appearance at the party: "I will always be your son. But I will never work for you." It may also have something to do with Michael losing it in his dotage. To repeat something Solozzo said in GF: "The Don...was slippin'."