Typo in an ad: fine. Typo on the box that ships out: Priceless.

Here's how I look at it, and, admittedly, this is more me filling in the blanks myself than going by anything Capcom has actually said or shown. News Bot will probably have to correct me on a few things, though, ha ha.

As far as "flicking the switch" goes, you have to remember that six years have passed between the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4. Granted, this has more to do with Shinji Mikami's inability to write a coherent story or reasonable character development, but in-universe, this time span is important nevertheless.

Regarding any abilities he may or may not have, he did survive Raccoon City, despite being a green rookie cop. While they may have, in fact, been recruiting him more for his potential than any demonstrated skills, I think it's not unreasonable to believe that they would want his experience and knowledge of BOWs, regardless of how wet behind the ears he might have been at the time. Now, as for why they chose him instead of, say, Claire or Chris?

It may be something as simple as neither being available at the time. Chris was in Europe, and Claire had already left for Europe by the time Leon and Sherry were picked up by the intelligence agents. Jill was still in Raccoon City, or if we accept that Raccoon had been bombed by the time Leon and Sherry were rescued, she was trying to find Chris. Jill also left Raccoon by helicopter and, presumably, would have bypassed any government blockades that she might have otherwise run into, such as Leon and Sherry did (again, presumably).

Plus, Darkside Chronicles showed that Leon wasn't so much recruited as he was coerced into working for the government. The intelligence agents didn't have anything on Chris or Jill (that we know of) that could have been used against them as Sherry was with Leon. Now, they could have certainly used Sherry against Claire, but like I said, Claire was already long gone. Also, Degeneration showed that Claire wasn't interested in being out on the front lines, not like her brother and Leon were, anyway. She preferred to help the victims of biohazard outbreaks and bioterror attacks.

After Rockfort Island, Chris and Jill were too busy quelling bioterrorist incidents across the globe with their private anti-bioterror unit which eventually led to the BSAA. Leon, in the meantime, is sent to South America with Jack Krauser to investigate Javier Hidalgo's ties to a former Umbrella researcher. By this time, four years have passed since Raccoon City, and it's during Operation: Javier where we really begin to see the progression of Leon as a character. Ironically enough, he beings to reflect several of Krauser's personality traits presumably (there's that word again) as a result of his time with Krauser.

We know he held Krauser in high regard and had the utmost respect for him. It's little wonder Krauser rubbed off on Leon, even in their short time together, possibly leading to Leon's more, shall we say, lackadaisical attitude in Resident Evil 4. It's not until after being faced with the truth of Krauser's "death" and betrayal, and subsequently being forced to kill his former comrade, that Leon becomes more hardened and embittered, as we see in Degeneration. Being led to believe by Ada herself that she, in fact, worked for Wesker probably didn't help matters much either.

It will be interesting to see how his character is handled in Resident Evil 6 (and Damnation, if it ever comes out), since the game apparently starts with Leon being forced to kill the very man who recruited him for government service in the first place. I can't help but wonder if any emotions he's bottled up over the years will come to the fore as a result. Adam claims he has "always valued" Leon's friendship, but given how their relationship started, I have to wonder if Leon feels the same.

EDIT:

That ended up being a lot longer than I had intended, and if anyone actually reads all of that, I commend you.

That's as far as I got bud. I'm sure you had a good point in there though lol

Ha ha. What can I say? I tend to get a little long-winded.

You should see some of the posts I've made over on cosplay.com. ChrisBSAA can attest to that.

I don't understand how Leon gets forced into working for the government due to Sherry being in their custody. There was never an established relationship between them. Claire had more to lose with Sherry being in their custody than Leon did. Maybe he agreed for the sake of Claire? I just have a difficult time believing that pushed him into working for the government. He doesn't show signs of distress or any resentment to his current position and he doesn't really ask about Sherry's status.

Obviously it's pretty hard to tell what's going on exactly in that regard, as we never heard from Sherry again. For all we know Leon could have been keeping tabs on Sherry all this time, or maybe he was even allowed to see her once in awhile. We just don't know one way or another.

But Darkside Chronicles made it pretty clear that Leon didn't exactly join of his own free will, either. Leon may have felt responsible for Sherry with Claire gone, or he may have still been reeling over his inability to save Ada and didn't want to lose someone else. Who knows.

Like I said, I was simply trying to fill in the blanks myself based on what little Capcom has actually given us. None of it is to be taken as official or canon, obviously.

LOL, we both tended to get a bit long-winded at times.

I can see your point though. Now we just wait for Capcom to completely ruin your well-thought out justification in some crazy way, in typical Capcom fashion of course.

I never considered your post to be canon or not, I just took it as a collective observation of what we already know within the series. I was throwing my observation in there as well.

Your giant text post was a good read. Brought up a discussion, which is a plus for me.

I suppose this would depend on which scenario of RE2 is considered canon; at least where the writers were concerned. This may be something which will go through a retcon, depending on whether New Girl is Sherry, or not.

Claire A / Leon B is canon.