Heh, I never really saw him as anything other than just some dude. At first he seemed to be some kind of pencil-pusher, but then you realize he's with SHIELD and you're like, "Oh, so he's a SHIELD pencil-pusher," and then he whips out a gun and tries to protect Pepper and you're like, "Oh, so he's an actual SHIELD agent," but he still remains pretty normal. I like that they're not going overboard with the tech and stuff.
SHIELD is still, for all intents and purposes, just another alphabet intelligence agency that happens to be concerned with superheroes in the movies. That's a nice, grounded approach that works well for the film universe they've established so far. Hopefully, we might start seeing them adapt sci fi tech and other stuff as they go along--sort of like Stargate SG-1, which started off with the teams using normal weapons and slowly built their arsenal over the seasons until, by the end, they had Earth-built starships that could stand toe-to-toe with alien ships.