NeverarGreat said:

I thought the Tyrion episode was a clever way of avoiding an expensive battle scene, and I didn't think it was deflating at all. The point of such a thing would be to refocus the story on a single character, so if it feels deflating to miss the battle, that is only because there has been too much emphasis on battles and secondary characters already.

I can see your point in the GoT example. It did save their budget, and it did focus down on Tyrion. That battle, however, didn't have many other characters to be concerned with. The reveal that Tyrion survived and that Robb had taken Jamie prisoner is more important, character wise, than what happens in the battle itself.

In The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in general, the secondary characters are part of what makes the movies so great. To have Fili and Kili die off screen, to not see Thorin fall, or to miss Bard and Thandruill working together to push the Orcs out of the city just wouldn't feel right. Those are important character moments. I do think that any fanedit of The Hobbit needs to work harder to push Bilbo to the forefront, but I don't think those secondary characters can lose the end of their arcs in order to do so.