There were too many radical departures from what JRR Tolkien was trying to do for me to still enjoy it.
Perhaps it would've made ROTK the first dual-part series finale movie (like The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Avengers) of its kind.
So, one of the main points (the main point?) is missed, as well as Saruman's proper death.
If ROTK had been made into a two-parter finale it could have worked, perhaps. Or maybe a separate spin-off film for the Scouring.
He is a bit of an odd character, especially with no context of the Silmarillion.
I particularly loved the small touches; Boromir teaching the hobbits to use their swords, for example, helped make him a much more sympathetic and tragic figure than Tolkien did.
From Two Towers on the changes became considerably less good though; throwing out much of the plot incolving Saruman in favour of an invented-out-of-whole-cloth side quest for Aragorn was a terrible decision and, as you say, the changes to Faramir were appalling.
One positive, though, was emphasising the point that Frodo failed and the ring was destroyed by chance? That was good, because it was a key moral point Tolkien wished to make.
