What's Wrong with Reuven?

Reuven, Yaakov's firstborn son, always seemed to be getting into trouble and interfering with the issues of his parents.  Leah married Yaakov through a scheme of her father Lavan.  He tricked Yaakov into marrying the wrong sister.  In order to marry Rachel, Yaakov worked an extra seven years.  Anyways, Reuven was never Yaakov's favorite child.  Being the oldest, he would have been the first child to sense the lack of affection between his two parents and Yaakov's clear love of Rachel.  He just wanted his mother (and siblings) to be in his father's favor.  Of course, he tried to achieve this through some very odd actions.  Way back, he gave fertility flowers to his mother, which led to her having another child.  After Rachel died, Reuven went to Bilha and "Vayishcav."  There is little room for misinterpretation here.  He had inappropriate relations with his father's concubine and former maidservant of Rachel.  Reuven's intentions were rather sinister: he wanted to make Bilha "damaged goods" so that Yaakov's main wife would become Leah, not Bilha.  (Yaakov exhibits no severe reaction to this.  The text pauses and then commences again with "Yaakov had twelve sons."  This comes to show us that Yaakov's core personality was still non-confrontational and that he could turn the leader part of his personality on and off.)  Later on, he is the one who throws Yosef in a pit.  He had intended to go back and rescue him, but Yosef was gone before that.  He just wanted his brothers to be in their father's good graces.

What can we learn from Reuven?  He displays incredible persistence and determination in all of the above instances.  Obviously, this is not always a good thing.  When one child (or seven) are overlooked by their father, they may go to extreme measures for attention.  Reuven wanted to get Yaakov's attention and wound up doing obscene things for it.  He did not go unpunished.  Although Yaakov did nothing to him immediately after these incidents, Reuven was cursed on Yaakov's deathbed.  We learn two things from this.  First, no misdeed goes unpunished.  Second, as parents and children, jealousy will arise if one is favored over another.  All children want is to be loved.  They deserve that, at least.  What so y'all think?