Rachel's one of my favorite characters. Of course, it helps that everyone's verbally beating up on her all the time so she constantly has my sympathy.
I just find it interesting that Mr. Shue has no problem with Santana and Quinn repeatedly using slurs on her religion, ethnicity, appearance and height, and talk about wanting to commit acts of violence on her out loud in the middle of class, but only when SHE walks in with duct tape over her mouth in protest over a solo does someone deserve Shue's very over-the-top outburst of rage. In front of the whole class. Sure, she was being a brat, but it's not like she was the only one who voiced a problem with those guys getting the solos at Sectionals, and it's not like she needed that extra humiliation. Come on writers, it's not like it's ONLY gay boys who kill themselves over having to deal with this kind of stuff on a daily basis.
Rachel may be far too competitive, but she isn't maliciously mean to anyone, yet just about everyone in that club is constantly malicious to her. Including Kurt, which is why I had to laugh at his line about how SHE couldn't be nice to HIM back when he was at McKinley. Were we watching the same show, Kurt?
So I guess since Rachel is everyone's punching bag on this show, including the writers, it's kind of impossible for me to hate her. And sorry guys, but Quinn and Santana can die in a fire for all I care. Sam too, just for committing the ultimate crime of boring me to tears. He and Quinn as a couple seem to form a super black hole of charisma that literally makes me zone out whenever they're on screen.