I will say this about Barry: he is a very creative individual who is a talented photographer.  In other words, he's quite well-rounded.  Being of a sensitive nature, he does sometimes over react.  On his MySpace, he always takes the time to answer my questions, something I've rarely gotten from anyone else connected to these shows.

I think he is serious and sincere.  As he wrote me, he feels researchers must go out on a limb and try new types of equipment; specifically, the full spectrum camera.  I did not pick up any fakeness coming off of him.  Perhaps he has wanted a bigger role.  He has to my memory never appeared with Robb at a reveal.  It may be that he feels he has been associated with the group long enough to have moved up in the ranks.  Who knows?

And now they bring in Paul–IMO you could have cut the tenseness with a knife.  It really doesn't seem fair.  Or maybe I'm just defending Barry too much.  But he really is serious about what he does; just a bit excitable.

I like Barry. I like his personality, well as much as it can be portrayed on the show anyway. He reminds me of a mischievous Irish leprechaun!

I don't think much of his electronic skills though. He's completely clueless with EMF meters. A pro ghost hunting tech specialist needs better knowledge of radio, the electromagnetic spectrum and electronics. 

I don't see a problem with multiple tech specialists, as long as they specialise in different areas. In fact the whole team should be specialists in their respective field, not general dog's body jack of all trades. If you're going to use scientific toys to detect spooks, experts in the field are needed. And no that isn't Paul. Paul replacing Barry would be a disaster!

@ The Doctor,

Yes, Barry did have his own ghost tour operation.  It's been mentioned several times throughout this board.  In fact, I sent the same link to Oubliette quite some time ago when she had sent me a picture Barry had taken.  You can find it very easily through Barry's MySpace page although the website he mentioned shut down probably @ 2005.  Bits and pieces of the site can still be viewed as late as June 2006.  The very first two sentences of Barry's post, which was omitted above, seem to be one of the keys to Barry's ghost hunting philosophy:

"They say any place where man has lived is 'Haunted'.  Personally I would tend to agree."

The second link from NOVA Paranormal (Northern Virginia) was taken directly from the TAPS website (where Barry is still listed as a member) as are the numerous other articles by Jason & Grant, etc. which NOVA has posted for the "Hunters" on their own site.  Barry is the author and you can verify that by simply going to the TAPS website and looking under the title "Articles" on the upper left.

Learjet – I loved your description of Barry.  "He reminds me of a mischievous Irish leprechaun!"  Very true.

I agree with Revenant and Oubliette in the fact that Barry just doesn't seem to quite fit into this group.  Neither did Andy but, strange enough, Barry almost has that excitable quality of Andy although at times he's overly dramatic but that's his personality.  Andy, as annoying as he seemed at times, was a great debunker and you could just see the enthusiasm he brought with him on every episode.  He was the one light of hope when I watched GHI and as I've said it before and I'll say it again, I liked Andy.  Barry brings with him the mischievous leprechaun qualities as Learjet mentioned.  He's proven to be better than anyone presently with GH or GHI in debunking and deserves to be at the reveal.  Dustin, not so much.  He's almost embarrassing as he drones on and on.  Both Dustin and Robb are devoid of personality in my opinion and no matter whether he's frosting his spiked hair and wearing his hat backwards, upside down or whatever, Dustin is boring and so is Robb.

GHI needs to clean house, analyze why previous members have left, and get some real personality if it is to survive and they need to stick to it.  This flavor of the week is one of the reasons they cannot gel.  They can't bank on the GH train to keep them going up the mountain for much longer no matter what Pilgrim or Syfy and their PR minions say.

@ HipKat – "Now, all of a sudden, this season, he thinks he's Grant."

Agreed and, in my opinion, I wouldn't consider that a compliment.

I have received a very quick response from Barry to a PM I sent him on MySpace.  He answered that I was most kind in what I said about him (mentioning his willingness to try new ideas and his analysis of evidence) but, true or not, I detected a hint of sadness.  Wonder if he is on his way out, and not willingly?

I'm starting to think SyFy or whoever is calling the shots have been making a lot of bad decisions lately.  For instance, the coming attraction for DT last night showed one of the gals screamng her head off–just like on GH.  I fear they are starting to apply the GH formula to DT, thus ruining a great adventure show.  But we'll have to wait and see.  But I'm getting bad vibes, must admit.

Nosfer said:

Barry lost a lot of his credibility to me in the earlier GHI episodes. His random run snapping pictures, the crap he pulled with Shannon where he completely set her up and then "freaked out" over those legs was inexcusable. If it's a team effort, then everyone should go in with the same awareness, not Barry going in, psyching her up and then freaking out. It takes a lot to overcome those actions and he's yet to do that for me. He's still to excitable which is fine if there would every so often be something to be excited about. His flair for the dramatic is over the top and not a good quality when it comes to a down-to-earth scientific investigation (oh, nevermind, I guess that doesn't really apply here )

I believe Barry is supplying exactly the function that he was placed on the team to perform.  As a Ghost Tour guide, his job is to make it exciting … to do his best to ensure that the client perceives that they have had the experience they are looking ( and paying ) for.  He does the same on GHI.

In the Season 1 Chateau LaGorce episode, pictures taken in his own bedroom were presented to the team, and then to the client out of sequence with a story wrapped around them.  For an investigator, a "tech manager" and someone who knows his way around camera equpment, this is inexcuseable.  For a Ghost Tour guide, it may be standard operating procedure.  

In another early episode he had one of the girls running helter-skelter through the castle snapping random pictures, and a similar event with Joe in an attic. I'm not sure what this is meant to accomplish as an investigation technique  , but it would be very effective for a Ghost Tour guide to leave the perception in the mind of the client that they were running after or away from a ghost.

Given a choice of a "hunt", I would rather be entertained by Barry. 

I can't imagine just sitting around with Robb and Dustin saying "please do something and we can leave", then a few days later them giving me a tape of some garble as evidence of what a great hunt I was on.