He left because he wanted to be a part of his daughters life.

Ok. That honorable.

Yeah. He'd been been acting pretty much non-stop since the late 70's. Certainly busy as a bee since 1985 when MacGyver premiered. He was getting old, probably a little tired of the O'neill role as it wasn't really going anywhere character-wise. He also, as stated, wanted some quality time with his daughter. He was never married, though. He did date Teri Hatcher (probably in the 80/90's when she was a regular guest star on MacGyver) and Lara Flynn Boyle to name a couple. But yeah, **** Here're the Ori spoilers: ****

The Ori impregnated a new character called Vala Mal Doran, who gave birth to a sort of Ori Messianic girl called the Orici (or Adria), who grew from an infant to a (super hot) young woman in less than a week. The Ori somehow instructed simple medieval people to build massive space ships that made short work of the most advanced Goa'uld and Human ships (despite being boosted with Asgard technology such as shields) They attempted to take over the entire Milky Way galaxy with the powerful Orici at the helm. They were a HUGE threat compared to the Goa'uld but... Being the bad guys... It's worth seeing this plot even if you miss RDA. :) The Ori never really interfered that much with the people of the galaxy themselves so the ancients of our galaxy didn't need to interfere (much). The last seasons had a King Arthur theme to it. Merlin was an ancient who built a weapon (the holy grail) which was capable of killing ascended beings. The two movies made after the show dealt with 1: The Ori plot (the ark of truth) and 2: Ba'al trying once again to take over the galaxy, this time by screwing with the timeline. (continuum)

Yeah I kind of got halfway through the Ori storyline and I didn't like it. I kind of gave up on the show. I really hate the new Colonel guy

He's different, I'll give you that. No use comparing him to RDA. I can't stand his southern accent and perky attitude. I don't even like him in Farscape, although I'm a big fan of the series, I can't stand the lead actor. :)

Ben Browder is fine. Not the worst not the best. They wanted him for Atlantis but he was doing the Peacekeeper wars.

The Ori storyline gets better in the 10th season. Don’t want to spoil it but 10th season you see the ori as a real threat. Kinda works.

Still miss Anubis.