I don't view the current character as the same Cyclops of the 80's. Simonson put Scott through a journey of acceptance and redemption for what he had done to Maddie and moved on in his life with Jean. Grant Morrison breaking him up and putting him with Emma regresses the character and removes all the character development he had under Simonson's pen, which is how we end up with the current mess of a character that we call Cyclops today. 

It might be surprising in a Cyclops fan, but I don't mind the current "Cyclops as (relativly) bad guy" arc as much as I could have. At least, unlike the "Cyclops as deadbeat dad" concept, this development seems to proceed from what the character went through.

As shaxper says, Scott was an insecure kid (and it wasn't about his eye beams, no matter what the guy thought). Other early Marvel characters were on the shy side too: Peter Parker was a bookworm, Bruce Banner was a skinny wallflower, Don Blake was a small and limping fellow, even Reed Richards was afraid to propose to Sue. Ah, but then Peter Parker had the amazing powers of Spider-Man and was an undisputedd genius; Bruce Banner could turn into the incredible Hulk and was an undisputed genius; Don Blake could turn into a frickin' GOD and, without being a genius, was smart enough to be a medical doctor; Reed Richards was the geniusest of all Marvel geniuses and had good looks too.

Scott Summers? A shy guy with average intelligence, no social skills, no great athletic prowess, and probably zits too. He fell in love with basically the first girl he met, and had to compete for her attention with a blonde millionaire dude who could fly! I can understand why he'd feel unequal to the task of being an aspiring leader. However, and that's why he owes so much to Xavier, the job saved him. To be the X-Men's leader, he had to grow into an efficient individual (which also gave him an excuse to distance himself from his oh so uncomfortable emotions). I'm sure he must have done a lot of push-ups and burned the midnight oil studying when growing up. That never made him as strong or knowledgeable as many of his colleagues, but it did make him disciplined. At the end of his run as a regular X-Man, say in issue 138, he had grown into a confident man at last; one who could not only survive the loss of his lover, but one who could grow out of the associated grief and pain.

When X-Factor came along, he was not only written back to an insecure guy, but as an outright emotional wreck. I'd understand if that had been caused by a nervous breakdown brought by Jean's return, a temporary situation, but somehow that's the way he was written for years after that (and naturally, his dumping his wife and kid on a whim made him look very bad indeed, as it should).

Morrison handled Scott as emotionally damaged in the early 2000s, like most writers before him, even if having him have an affair (instead Jean, whom many fans wanted to be sacrificed on Wolverine's altar) was an unexpected idea. Not one I thought made a lot of sense, but unexpected and somehow interesting.

It took Whedon's Astonishing X-Men series to make the character matter again, by giving him a harder edge. Scott as leader of the few remaining mutants went even deeper into his unemotional persona, paradoxically adopting his son Cable's attitude of "the ends justify the means". Is it a path I'd want a hero walk down? Probably not, since that way lies villainhood! But I can see how a guy like Cyclops could see no other option. As I said above, he's not an intellectual.

His current "Revolution" shtick looks like a nervous breakdown again, brought about by his guilt over killing Xavier. I don't know how that will pan out, but I'd rather have him go all efficient and badass when he's having a breakdown than have him mope and complain!

Anyway... it's to the recent writers' credit that this character has grown into one that matters in the Marvel universe, instead of ranking along the likes of Stingray or Torpedo.

I didn't read those stories, so I have no idea: was Cyclops being "tainted" by his merging with Apocalypse something mentioned before Morrison came aboard?

Not that it would be wrong for Morrison to have come up with the concept himself, but I'm curious about how much he built on what came before and how much he made up. He never shied away from just doing his own stuff (Magneto being all-out evil again, Shaw suddenly being a telepath, Weapon X being weapon ten...)

I think Emma has to be a bad guy again at some point.. she's MUCH better evil than as a snarky good guy (even though snarky good guys are all the rage). We need to get the Stepford Cuckoos battle it out with her at some point, after all.

I was just wondering, back on New X-Men during Grant Morrison's run, Emma and Scott were having sex in the psychic world. Is that considered cheating? Even though they never physically manifested their sexual encounter at that time.