That's a fair point. I would love to see some side stories about something like defecting orcs, or just a friendly orc living in a cabin in the forest.

Yeah. Such a hard thing to avoid unless you want to kill off a lot of characters. I would say that Borimir is the only main character that dies in my mind.

This 100%. Watching the 4K versions really shows some of the terrible (by today's standards) CGI and green screens. Lot less noticable on DVD.