Vito was a loveable, nice, family guy who happened to kill people. It doesn't matter what he did or how he did it. It is all different when your first son dies, and dies so violently. I don't care who you are, when you see your son in that manner, you turn humble and vulnerable no matter what you do. Especially when you consider how close Vito was to Sonny.

True, Vito could be a ruthless man, but when he needed to be. His son died, and he reacted in the very way Vito would react, calm and still respectable but even a little wimper when he saw how they "massacred his boy".

The dapper don (Gotti) was probably the most likeable.