Many people think Han's death would have been better for his character, but I don't really see that. In fact, after the long gap between the ESB and ROTJ and not knowing the fate of Han, I think it would have been rather annoying to have him rescued only to have him die. Might as well just killed him off in ESB.

ROTJ was really focused on Luke's character, and I think it worked well in that way. Putting too much emphasis on the other characters might very well have taken away from that. I do however, think Han would have benefitted from being involved in the space battle, rather than on the ground. Doesn't really stand that they would have such an ace pilot on their hands, and not have him in the space battle. I think it might have been interesting had Lando been on the ground, with Han and Chewie in the Falcon. But this would have taken away from the Han Leia romance, which really needed to go somewhere after being setup in ESB.