This might have helped when I was making the transition from LotR to MtG. Maybe.
Anyways, I don't think the removal of allies or the changing of the site path killed the game at all. I wasn't a serious FotR player, so I don't have much room to argue, but RotK didn't do anything bad for me, either.
But heck, I'm one of those people who are okay with the Hunter mechanic. I really think D screwed up around RoS and then on T&D and AE. But it probably did start long before that.