The guy can only do so much if Creative isn't going to give him anything interesting to do.
He's got a great entrance, and yes, it does lend itself to getting him more of a face pop, but that doesn't mean he can't be a good heel.
The New Age Outlaws were heels many times in the Attitude Era, yet fans would still chant along with that "Oh you didn't knoooowwwww??" line and the other stuff Road Dogg would say in the ring.
I'm not sure why WWE isn't just letting him do what he does best. Be a smug, arrogant heel. He looks down on everyone else and he can play up being rich and successful.
They've not even allowed him to show ANY of that on the main roster and even as a babyface, he's bland.
Why not when McIntyre and Ziggler started running around have Roode get involved with them? Have them attack some targets and then cut a promo announcing their team, give them a name like "Better Than You Inc." and they put the rest of the roster "on notice" and go from there.
If you did that, instantly Roode would be more relevant and the team would be more formidable than just McIntyre and Ziggler. You could also then have McIntyre and Roode feud with the Tag champs and win the titles. Run with that mid-to-upper card faction for a while. They can try to manipulate other wrestlers into joining them or facing the consequences and then you have multiple interesting paths you can go and something consistently on Raw that should be worth tuning into to see what's happening.
All that would be additional to whatever the Universal Title picture has going on. Of course, some of the members of this team could get involved, and then back down to mid-card, but it seems it would be more interesting than what's happening now!
Raw "Creative" are on auto-pilot. What's happening now is in no way the best they could come up with if they had to.
I would LOVE to see what would happen if WWE faced real, true competition like they did back in the 90s with WCW.
However, wait maybe a few years and if WWE keeps going on auto-pilot, WWE may start to actually feel competition... maybe from NJPW.