It's odd because I rarely read AUs. Then Danvers came along and ruined me.

I agree with you that in an AU the interesting thing is to keep the canon characters; otherwise it's not an AU it's original fic. I can see why some people felt this story didn't do that. For me, it mostly did. While not the version of John and Rodney that live in my head and discuss the movies I am attempting to watch, they were nevertheless a believable version.