As others have observed, Ben is a puzzling character. He's the classic underdog, a well-meaning but incompetent loser who's used to being overlooked and under-rated. I, like a lot of players, disliked him and wished quite often that he had died where Mark did and found him useless but I kept him alive in episode 4 because I knew that in episode 5 he would do something awesome to redeem himself and reward you for sticking with him.
Yet of course, he not only dies anyway, but dies in a trivial way and takes Kenny, who was relatively useful, with him. His moment never comes.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but is Ben's role to teach us a lesson about the world of The Walking Dead, that people can live short and painful lives without hokey Hollywood moments? Is the point of Ben's life that in Kirkman's world, characters don't necessarily have a point or grand destiny, they just live and die however the dice land?