Biggest cult favourites / underdogs this series
 

To me it was Sunshine and after her Dave.

Ben has never been a cult favourite or underdog he has been promoted as one of the main mainstream figures by the producers. The same happened with Shabby with her showmance and the constant promoting of her after she left the house. Those two are like fake underdogs, they are promoted as the big unusual characters at the expense of others who are just as big or even bigger.

Strongly agree with 3/4ths of your post.

Sunshine was a BB Classic and was tragically killed by the fake 2005 joke/stunt contrived idiot Marcus/Shabby mistake done by (not so much casting) but by producers.

Sunshine a cult classic.
Dave may be the surprise 'cult classic' in that he was there to shame 'white christian males' or whatever C4s little mandate thing,
yet,
in some strange way the public and Dave have kind of 'one-upped' BB and got the better of them.

Yes, of course Shabby was a fake stupid thing and I do not consider her a real BB11er. She ought not be included in anymore HM references and was insulting to the audience.

Obviously, Ben was picked to be the upper-class twit and get's promoted as such but I think Ben has 'transcended' even that.
Not only that but sometimes you just have to admire someone who does it so well.
I think Ben has done that and become 'bigger than life' in his own right and so I appreciate him for it.

Ben is a character, but should he really be that much a bigger favourite than Dave? I don't really see why at all, apart from the fact that he has had loads of twists which has involved him and has had loads of airtime.

You seem to mention Marcus in your first post. Well I think Marcus was a bonafide cult favourite in BB10, the producers didn't realise what they had until later in the series, the start of the series was all about Freddie. In some ways Freddie was built up into more than he actually was and he faded in the end. I'm not saying Freddie wasn't a big character, just that Marcus had more staying power. With Ben as well I'm not sure he has had as much staying power as the producers thought, and like Shabby with all the twists and promotion they give him he gets too overexposed.