On Howard Roark - Is he the hero everyone says he is?

I recently read a someone's review of The Fountainhead in which said person written in length about the beauty of the heroes and philosophy and I could not but help pen the following down -

Yes, indeed, The Fountainhead is one book that shaped my early teenage years and thinking, it still does continue to do so well into my 20s. And perhaps, Atlas Shrugged is better exemplification of Ayn Rand's true philosophy, more so than The Fountainhead, but it is true that this book has some of the most unique and interesting characters in all her works. The problem lies in her portrayal of these “unrealistic” heroes and villans. 

The truth is probably (as I have observed in my life) that Howard Roark is not a real person. It is possible for people to try to emulate him in some misguided quest for liberation, but practically speaking, people like him do not exist. A deeper look into her life reveals that she actually fell into depression after writing her magnum opus - Atlas Shrugged, because she herself struggled with the conflict from not being able to consistently and incessantly think and feel like her "heroes". Why? Because they aren't real. Yes, some of their qualities are present in people around us, but those characters, they do not exist and (perhaps) never can. One can argue that Ayn Rand didn't want to show us real people, but how people could/should be. Roark is a solemn man with ironclad beliefs and doesn't succumb to the weakness that plagues others. No one is Howard Roark for the same reason that nobody is Christ or Shiv or Mohammad or whatever God one believes in. 

Ayn Rand argued in favor of rationality and rejected religion, but her protagonists seem to have these deity like qualities that seem neither realistic nor achievable to emulate over the length of a lifetime. The truth is, Ayn Rand "romanticizes" her characters' stoic qualities to deliver a stronger message than reality ever can - and that's where the problem is. People take the characters' behavior at face-value and jump headfirst into these appealing, yet harmful behaviors that further isolate them from what makes them happy without questioning it beforehand. That is irrational. 

Hence, while The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged continue to be one of the most personally influential books in my life and have served for many many hours of beautiful intellectual debate among friends and colleagues, I cannot ever endorse the view that Howard Roark is the perfect man or that is Dominique the perfect woman. 

Consequently, they are but art, exaggerated, distorted, to pander to the abstract longings of our mind - to derive meaning in a life that is but without.