Frankly, pushing Ron down doesn't lift Draco up to me. I never got the impression that Ron was being deadly serious in that scene. He was having a laugh with his family. No crime in that.

I agree that Draco was in over his head in the last two books. I always forget that he doesn't turn Harry in at the manor. (and being less charitable towards him, I tend to think it more to him being petrified of drawing Voldemort's attention to him that wanting to save Harry) But in the end result though he does decide of his own free will to side with Voldemort and try to capture Harry and get the horcrux in the Battle Of Hogwarts.

The best thing that can be said about Draco is that he was not a murderer and not okay with personally torturing people. That's good. It's not the same thing as him rejecting the pureblood supremacyand realising it was wrong.

I agree with you that people can change and Draco may have been better later in life, but all the epilogue says to me is that he and Harry can stand on the same platform without any drama.

I'd applaud fanfic exploring this changing him and giving him more dimensions but its not something i saw actually happen in the canon. More we saw the very start of something that could have been change but then again... maybe not.

In any case, Draco was very popular before any of that did start to happen.