I voted no. Barnabas is a gray character throughout the show, and though he later became the prime guardian of the Collins family's well-being, in 1967 and 1968 he was more of a monster. [spoiler]Throughout 1967, Barnabas was paranoid, willing to kill anyone who might have some inkling about his secret. He nearly destroyed Maggie because of his obsession with Josette, and let an innocent person take the fall. Let's not forget either how he tried to strangle Julia every five minutes.[/spoiler] The few good deeds Barnabas did for those he cared about do not outweigh his abuse of Willie and Maggie and his cavalier attitude toward Adam's needs. To me, those acts do not speak of an admirable, praiseworthy character deserving of esteem but of someone who is only selectively nice when his interests are threatened. [spoiler](e.g. Barnabas loves Vicki and therefore wants to protect her from the Dream Curse even if it costs him his mortality, but he didn't go to extremes to help Julia or Willie or Sam Evans when they had the dream. Getting Stokes to intervene in the curse was motivated by Barnabas's concern for himself, not his concern for the general wellbeing of other innocents who might also be affected by the curse).[/spoiler]
The character did evolve for the better throughout the series, albeit with major setbacks in 1897, but I don't think Barnabas ever became a paragon of morality.
ProfStokes