General stats would be cool. How many game-days played did you make it? How many HRPT's were you a part of?
To my lasting regret, I didn't keep many logs from that time period so I'm not sure what the my exact number of days played was.

But it was definitely over 100! I want to say about 110 days played? It seems unbelievable, but none of the RPTs Samos took part in (or led) were HRPTs. That said, there were several memorable RPTs I can think of - the gith invasion of Allanak, the north/south peace talks in Luirs, and the subsequent tablelands campaign against the gith spring immediately to mind.
What were the early days of Samos like? Was he ever a bumbling noob Templar?
In the beginning, Samos was more of a hick cop from the boonies than an inspiring war hero. He taxed everyone he met (usually just 20-30 coins) for the most insignificant things. Talkin' stupid (rinthis and foreigners), short tax (dwarves), breathin' funny (anybody). He once taxed Rokov Kurac for being Rokov Kurac, and took his hat.
OOCly, I was sort of a nooblar at first, too. I have a log from fairly early on of me arresting and interrogating somebody because his mdesc vaguely matched the features of a Big Bad Guy I'd been warned to look out for. I drug this poor rinther into a cell and started interrogating him about all these super secret arcane topics, but wasn't getting the answers I wanted, and it felt like the PC was mocking Samos with his denials. So finally, Samos killed him.... and the guy newbie repopped. Instead of torturing a big bad nilazi demon person, I'd been interrogating an hour old PC. Whoops.

I always wondered how satisfying it is to throw someone into the Bug Pitt of Death, how many times did you get to do that?
I have no idea how many people Samos chucked into the bug pit - it wasn't a small number, but it wasn't big either. I'd say the circumstances dictated how satisfying a death was. Sometimes it sucked. Once, Samos discovered a treacherous recruit in the ranks and had to chuck him into the pit in front of the whole unit - that was a dramatic day for everyone, especially poor brytta's character. Hey, weren't you that guy?

Samos usually reserved the bug pit for people that had really, really offended him or someone important, or who just weren't displaying any sort of fear or respect for authority at all. Most of the time I liked to execute people in the Arena if I could, because it's at least a more exciting death.
Any times Samos came close to death?
Yeah - Samos had several one-on-one battles with various sorcerers and other vile dudes over the course of his life, and these were always harrowing. During the gith campaigns, he took multiple arrows to the neck, head, and body and got pretty close to death. This was when Samos became one-eyed. I figured a headshot that took off 50hp was worth losing an eye over.
One stupid incident (on my part) involved Samos accidentally landing himself in the middle of a pack of vicious wild animals, which promptly ripped him to shreds. I'd just stepped out of the barracks, told the soldiers I had to go "take care of something", and left...only to return 3 minutes later, bleeding severely. Pretty sure that was one of the dumbest things I ever did.
Another time I led a war party of soldiers and gemmed mages out of the city because I'd had a tip that a bunch of (PC) baddies were going to be attacking. Our group ran headlong into theirs, and it erupted into the biggest PvP combat I can recall ever seeing that wasn't part of a planned RPT. Samos' forces won (because Highlord, duh), but he came very, very close to dying. I guess that's to be expected when about six people all type "kill templar" at once.