I wonder, could the role of Devlin Stone be played by VSD? Or did he simply have way too much baggage? I'd actually find him a more likely candidate to form the republic.
Victor tried and failed. After the Ark Royal bombing his coalition floundered. And, the thing to remember is that the Republic's foundation came after a decade of the Inner Sphere not being able to come up with an effective counter to the Word of Blake. Non governmental responses, like Uncle Chandy's group were more effective in organizing early efforts against the Blakists. Dissatisfaction with the inadequate performance of the governments set the stage for a new power, not associated with the previous, ineffective governments to take shape. There is no figure more embodying the sloppy status quo than Victor Ian Steiner-Davion.
Stone comes out of nowhere, and uses some Jedi mind trick to make all the houses and clans go alone with it, but Victor? He was already universally respected, closest thing to a modern Alex Kerensky.
Stone courted Victor in Well Met in the Future specifically because Victor has the respect and history of cooperation with the powers that would have to agree to all of Stone's demands. But, Victor himself was from the nobility. He wasn't the guy coming up with a whole new system. Victor's history was to retreat to the corners he felt safest. Those corners happened to be the military, not the political stage. Stone was the military man of the Republic, but Lear was behind him to organize things. Victor had no Lear. Also, after having botched leadership of the FedCom and Comstar Victor's prospects as an actual leader are pretty low.
Two house lords were his siblings which he placed on throne, he had a strong connection to the Kurita (though I doubt a Davion would ever get too popular in that region...), and he was dating/married to a Marik (a "real" one, at that); and the clans probably respected him as the leader of the refusal war.
He used those connections to build support for the Republic. He could do that without having to actually leading it. Paladinship is exactly the kind of position Victor would be suited for. Powerful enough to influence the Republic without being powerful enough to mess the whole thing up.
And as people here have already stated, he would an ideal first lord.
Nope.
I think it would be fitting for the end of the jihad and the time jump, if his story arc ended as "and Victor took his rightfull place as king of the universe, and for the first time in centuries the land was at (relative) peace". That would also might've killed the franchise I guess... Because It would be Battletech ultimate "happy ending" like "Return of the Jedi", people might not have wanted to spoil that.
That would have contradicted his long history of failure, whimping out of political fights, giving up on his responsibilities, shifting blame, etc. This isn't Sun-Tzu, where he messes everything up in the beginning and eventually finds his footing and becomes a good leader. Victor's failures tally higher the longer he is alive. He defeated REVIVAL. No one can take that away from him. Otherwise, he never amounted to much. The two things he got right after the Great Refusal was to not send Federated Suns nationals to Tharkad, and to join up with Stone.
I also see him as the more likely candidate to get himself frozen, to come back when the IS needed him most.
He's not that guy. Stone is that guy. Victor would have too much self doubt. He often struggled with being born that guy that destiny had chosen. He always wanted everyone to be his friend. A self made messiah figure doesn't need friends. Instead, he'd continue to build his private spy network and listen to everyone's phone conversations. That's the kind of guy Victor really was, a weasel with good aim.