Since I haven’t watched these films in a while, I decided to check out this video which summarizes the differences between the two official cuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEUlEaeifkE

Overall based on this information I think you mostly made the right choices, but I really will have to watch both cuts again for myself to determine how I feel about each change. I wonder if there are more instances where you could use snippets of EE footage or extra lines without including the whole scenes. This commentator seems to think the Farewell to Lorien and Great River scenes are critical, but ultimately I think sometimes pacing and not losing the audience can be the most important factor.