Teela Brown? So lucky that she got to go see and save the Ringworld as her first and last mission.

Actually 'unlucky' if I remember correctly.

The 'lucky' ones were unreachable.

Didn't Teela end up as the protector?

Based on the first book, lucky is probably right. She needed the experience of danger in order to broaden her horizons and to grow as a person.

Clearly, I haven't read enough of the series to comment on the last statement .... and they could easily alter the perception of the events in the first book.

"On one hand, every single one of my ancestors going back billions of years has managed to figure it out. On the other hand, that's the mother of all sampling biases." -- http://xkcd.com/674/ (hover text)