Les Mis deserved to win, The Academy shouldnt be basing their opinions off of critics anyway. Tom Hooper had a great direction with that film and the costume and art design was outstanding. Anne and Hugh also derserved those awards for those live performance, especially Anne. It takes a lot of talent to perform a song with a camera directly in your face.
Im on both sides. The Avengers wasnt that bad. It was hard for Joss Whedon to give all these characters the proper screentime. Christopher Nolan had amazing direction using little CGI, which i thought was masterful. Joss Whedon and Christopher Nolan both know how to handle comic book movies.
Why eliminate humor? It's based off a children's novel. The Radagast stuff was fine but it could've been in the extended version. The Goblins had to be in the movie, the stuff with Azog was fine.