Ah, glad Warbler brought up points for debate, as I knew that would be controversial.
First off, I agree that some of those points should never have been cut out in the first place. I even said as much that I thought "Cool, Considerate Men" was a good song that furthered the character. And I even directly stated that cutting the material was as big a crime in my book as supressing the theatrical cut. However, to avoid any kind of hypocrisy, I always side with the theatrical cut. After all, it was the only thing for 30 years. I didn't have time to mention this in my review, but what got me doing this was the fact that I ran across the used VHS at a local used book store. I hadn't seen it in a couple of years, and that had only been one time. Watching it through, I was already aware that "Cool, Considerate Men" had been cut out and all the reasons why. But I actually couldn't figure out where it was supposed to be, and nothing felt like it was missing. When I found the DVD for the purpose of having material I could get on my computer, I was quite surprised at all the material (nearly half an hour's worth) that had been put back in. All of it was enjoyable. Some of it was worth having back in, some of it didn't add or subtract anything of considerable substance, but it was certainly fun comparing and analyzing the two for my own personal curiosity. Turns out they actually cut around the deleted stuff quite creatively, or at least I thought so.
And, yes, I also agree that the film should have been as close to the play as possible, and I look at the Director's Cut as a closer means of achieving that. However, film being a moment in time, I can't help but see the theatrical cut as what the film turned out to be. And if I complain about Star Wars but not this, I feel like a hypocrite even though the circumstances are different. The impression I got from listening to the commentary (aside from them basically paraphrasing the dialogue for three hours... ugh) was, "Well, Jack Warner was nice enough to produce this movie for us, but he didn't really do everything how we wanted him to. Fortunately, he's dead now, so we can basically nullify every action he made in reference to this." And that's not saying I don't think the new version isn't an improvement. I think in a lot of ways it is, but that's not the point. Like I said in my video, it would have been great if they had branched the versions. And you're not the only one who suffered at the loss of the deleted scoring. I really wanted to use the instrumental of "The Egg" that was originally used in Franklin's introduction to score my "on camera" segment, but since it was only on the VHS, and I don't have a video capture card, and I couldn't find it on YouTube, I had to give up that dream.
Oh, and just in case I wasn't clear in the video, I do disagree with Nixon coercing Warner to cut "Cool, Considerate Men," and I think the film benefits by having it restored. What I was trying to say, though, is that I think the song suffers from being too ridiculously blatant in its political ideology to the point that I can certainly understand why Nixon would consider it insulting. But understanding and condoning are two different things. But since it was done, thereby becoming a part of history, that action deserves to be preserved.