Yep, fully agreed. Chirrut's was close, but even then his actual death was separate from his character.
I've just read Film Crit Hulk's article - bit too long and unwieldy as usual, but some of it really echoes my own long and unwieldy post, weird enough - and he suggests Chirrut should have pulled the lever with the Force. That would have worked on a similar level to your Bodhi in a TIE, for instance.
Chirrut pulling the lever with the force would have been dumb. The characters are introduced as one believing in the force, the other not so much (which is kind of odd considering they seem to be protecting Jeddah for its force-related significance). Chirrut says the force saved him, and the other says HE saved him. When Chirrut walks to the lever, his buddy is shooting to save him, and we never know if the force really is helping him, he gets blasted plenty but his buddy is shooting back. So it never tilts the balance one way or the other, and if the force had really worked to accomplish Chirrut's goal it would have reduced the significance of his buddy's help.
Bodhi should have just been cut, was one character too many.
Anyway this movie had poor character writing, not as bad as TFA's Finn/Rey/Poe, but the script could have been significantly tightened. It also lacked a central "theme" which I think should have been mistrust.
Quick brainstorm of how it could have benefited from a rewrite:
1- Have Jyn's father go back to the empire, abandoning his wife and daughter, with no explanation to either of them. Straight up abandoning them to a harsh life on an isolated planet with no way out. Eventually the empire comes for them, kills the mom, Jyn hides like in the movie.
2- Jyn would have stayed with Saw all along. Cassian would have showed up to try to take her to the "real" Rebels (why is explained below), which she would reject because she has trust issues from having being abandoned by her father, be it with him or people in general other than Saw and his close associates.
3- Cut Bodhi from the movie. Have Cassian be the one who got Jyn's father's message, not intended for her but for the rebels, which he would have gotten from the guy at the start of the movie who would have been part of Saw's crew. Rebels don't believe the message is true, thinks it's a ruse from Saw or the empire (more focus again on the theme of mistrust), but Cassian is sure it's real and wants help, hence why he is looking for Jyn. Cassian gets captured by Saw like in the movie, shows the message which had been hidden from Jyn by Saw (mistrust again), hoping to convince her to help him. Jyn rejects him as said above but is shaken.
4- Cut out Chirrut's buddy, give a more central and guiding presence to Chirrut, make him a funnier and wiser character, and have a good scene dedicated to him be the one to convince Jyn to follow her feelings. Death Star blast, blah blah.
5- They go where they think Jyn's father is being held, they were followed by Rebels, Rebels try to assassinate her father, mistrust again between her and Cassian but Cassian himself didn't know he was followed (mistrust between him and the rebels), and from there you can pretty much go forward with how the movie was written. Maybe add that K2 betrays the team at some point, only slightly and by helping them at the same time, before he sacrifices himself; he was never actually successfully reprogrammed, he had played along in order to eventually betray them at a key moment but ended up never acting out on it, which again would fit with the mistrust theme.
I wouldn't have killed off Jyn and Cassian, I would have made their survival a "mystery"; they would have accomplished their goal of getting the rebels the plans, but not wanting to be part of this anymore would have left. It ties again with the theme of mistrust (they both were betrayed in their own ways by those they fought for, so they want out and be with one another instead), and makes the ending a bit less depressing considering the above.
