gavra,
I would disagree about the biographies. If Gedolim are presented as people who were born as gedolim – they never got into a fight with their sister at age 5, never did anything wrong since age 1, never had to work hard to become who they became – then young people who read that will feel that their own shortcomings make it impossible to become a gadol.
I don’t necessarily agree. It gets down to what is the purpose of the biographies. You claim an additional purpose is to inspire others to become gedolim. I do not believe that to be the case. One does not become a Gadol by reading Artscroll.
IMHO, (and I guess you can ask Rabbi Finkelman what is correct), the purpose is to show us how specific actions of the Gadol made them what they were, and to show how anyone can adapt at least one of the actions. There is also a ??????? ???????? ?????? ???-???????? aspect. In addition, some of the biographies (specificly the Chofetz Chaim that I remember) deal with this specific issue (AKA, the story of the apple seller).
Besides, even if you are correct, saying that Gadol X got into a fight with his sister is not newsworthy (as everyone does it), and should still not be included.