I didn't want to hijack any previous/existing Tom Bombadil threads with something that may detract from their main discussion points.
Now bear with me, because I may get the spellings and even the names wrong, but hopefully the context of my "argument" will suffice to remedy any of thiese.
When Eomer kills the Ringwraith, there is actually more to the events behind this then are displayed/explained in the film.
Eomer would actually have been killed by the RW, except that Merry distracted it by stabbing him with his sword. The RW was extremeley districtated by this, sufficiently so to allow Eomer to get her mortal strike in with her sword.
In doing this Merry's arm went numb, and when he recovered his shield, he noted that the sword he had been carrying was melting away.
There is an even a description, which again I cannot access at the moment, but implies something about it doing the job for which it had been intended for many years.
Where id this sword come from? From a Barrow
Where was the Barrow? It was on the path that Tom Bombadil set the Hobbits on after they had rested with him (after he saved them from the Corrupted Ent)
Soooo if Tom hadn't intervened, merry would never have had the sword, and the RW would never have been distracted, and Eomer would have been killed before she had time to recover and deliover her killing strike, so the RW would hacve survived and swung the balance of the Battle.
Soooooo.. TomBombadil is actually a pivotal point in the story, and adds to the interconnectivity of the evnts leading to the fall of Sauron. Leaving him out detracts from the intricacy of the story.
BRING BACK TOM BOMBADIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!