I was an Eddie fan, and i too put him above Rubens. Just wish that he had the use of the same Ferrari's that Rubens has had since 2000, we would have seen him do more imo.
Eddie seems to be disliked (reading posts about him over the last 2 years on this site) but any driver that can score 14 points finishes out of 16 can't be that bad and i honestly believe that had he not had to play #2 to Michael for the first half of '99 (i.e having to sit behind Michaels ailing car at France when he would easily finished 4th in front of Rafe and Michael) he would have been WDC in '99.
As others have mentioned, he was also very outspoken, thats what everyone seems to crave in F1, yet he was often harshly critisized for it (yet when Villeneuve did the same, he was seen as a hero?
)