Yes he was, instead of Tony and Rhodey fighting, they could've had Vanko attacking Stark again. Instead of making Tony realize his out of control lifestyle will endanger people because a super villain crashed his party and hurt people, we get a play fight with Rhodey. At the expo, Hammer should've introduced the drones followed by the big daddy drone/suit, Whiplash v.3, then Whippy and the drones should've started f-ing stuff up at the expo with Tony getting there just in time to have them chase him. Maybe then we would've seen the final Whiplash suit for more than one freak'n minute.
At the end of the day all we got was a villain that attacks Tony in the beginning of the movie and doesn't see him again until the end. Instead of the scenes where Rhodey is pimping out the suit with the military, those could've been used to expand on Vanko's character.
Instead of them spending their money on making a War Machine suit, the cgi for the suit, and the promotion for War Machine, all of that could've gone towards Whiplash and some better looking suits.
Mickey Rourke/Vanko had the potential to be a great villain the likes of Heath/Joker, Molina/Doc Ock, McKellan/Magneto etc. instead he was reduced to a glorified cameo.
Whiplash seriously got the shaft in favor of War Machine.