No offense to the great Patricia Tallman, the fantastic actor and stunt person largely known for her work on Babylon 5 as well as the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. The wide eyes just seemed an odd choice.
My DS9 is rusty, but I think most people were expecting it to fail or go boom. So the portrayal here might have been meant as a "huh, we didn't blow up" type of reaction.