Great post! I agree that there is nothing whatsoever to recommend any of the three. It always leaves me wondering whether the late Mr. Ferrars was perhaps more like Edward? Poor Edward if he was of the same ilk as the other three!

A great irony, I think, is that the way they are and the way they treat Edward is probably much to blame for having driven him to Lucy in the first place! We've seen how she can flatter and ingratiate herself to anyone. One can only imagine how starved for affection--or even for any semblance of human empathy--Edward must have been when he left for Mr. Pratt's school. To have a pretty young girl be so sweet and kind to him as Lucy must have been, it would certainly not have been difficult for her to turn his head.
He had no idea that such a superior creature as Elinor could even exist. Lucy would have seemed like a monstrous improvement on his immediate family.