Ron Olesco, your point about clinging to the books and therefore not seeing the good pooints in the film is exactly right.
Here follows a paraphrase of some thoughts I put on another forum (that had a lot more complainers). The last time I went to a movie with any expectations was when I went to see Blade Runner. It was adapted from an excellent book and I was eager to see how they'd handle some of the ideas in it (visually feasible ones, not philosophical profundities). Instead I saw a futuristic chase-&-shoot movie taking place in a grungy dystopia that only had a passing resemblance to the premise and none at all to what it looked like in my mind's eye. It wasn't bad as a flick, but I wouldn't have enjoyed it at all if I'd insisted on it being true to the book. Funny, I've not heard film/sf buffs say anything but good about Blade Runner. Maybe I don't get out much, so if you have heard complaints, don't step on my premise, ok?
Now, being a lover of ballads, epics, opera, etc. I would have probably loved LOTR to be three nine-hour films replete with recitations, long songs in foreign languages (with subtitles, perhaps), etc. I also know that most of the moviegoing world would not love it. Book to stage, or screen, adaptations are nothing new. Lucia di Lammimore is not entirely faithful to Sir Walter Scott's novel Bride of the Lammimores. But the opera led me to Scotts writing. If these moviess lead folks to the novels that we love so much, then it is a good thing. Sure, the pictures in your head will always be better, and that's as it should be. "My" orcs are better than those in the film, and the ents are skinnier than I would like. But I was afraid they'd look like the apple trees in the Wizard of Oz. (I've gotta admit, "their" Elrond is a better one than I had, so I choose to imagine him differently. BTW, Animaterra, I don't think he's sneering so much as under a great deal of sress.) As I've said elsewhere, the attention to detail, the thought given to decisions, whether or not I agree with them, the craftsmanship in the props, go beyond anything I've ever seen in an entertainment production.
Sure there are things I'd change, or at least tweak; I have yet to see a perfect movie. If you're really losing sleep over this, as a wise friend of mine said, "If something annoys you, go out and do it better."