Ned doesn't "get himself killed", KL is a death trap for people who live their lives away from politics. He was golden if not for Littlefinger. I say trusting LF, supposedly a family friend who has helped uncover mysteries and plots and is offering you the gold cloaks, is a fine bet to make when you are blind. It's not fair to use your benefit of 20/20 vision to say the Eddard had poor judgment.

Post-LF he was going to be just fine at the Wall if not for Joffrey being a lying psycopath. Being outsmarted by the best, most entrenched person in The Game, and then executed by a lying King, is hardly Ned's fault.

I say he is very wise and just. Wise and just people die all the time.

As for Cat: you are ignoring her profound motherliness for her own children in favor of Theon, the man ultimately responsible for death and/or mutilation of almost everyone in Winterfell, and her husband's bastard. Sure, Cat doesn't get likability points from me for her treatment of Jon, but I understand that I can't put myself in her shoes, and I remember that part of her contempt is that his existence threatens Robb, her actual child.

Not fair to have Cat's character shoulder LSH's psycho tendencies. If anything, Mother Merciless gets to be ironic because of how Motherly GRRM thinks of real Cat. Hence the contrast.

In the spirit of my intial response: if you want to say Theon makes a good crone for his superficial appearance (not holding his incredible short-sightedness against him), it's not fair to say my picks are superficial. I'm not conceding that Eddard and Catelyn are superficial, as I've argued against that above, only pointing out that you are cherry-picking when it's superficiality or essences are the rule.