I agree. Usually I'm one of those people who wants movies to be completely faithful to the books they're based on, but I think for the most part in this case the omissions were good. For example, Hermione's house elf activism, while an interesting part of the books, probably wouldn't have worked in the movies.

Oh I see you cover that later in the article! You're right about Harry and Ron's attitudes towards it too, I hadn't even thought about that aspect of it :/ It's better that in the movies they make Harry more of a house elf supporter, and almost entirely omit Ron's selfishness about the issue