Agreed. Coppola's reimaginings, while interesting to see for fans of the film, don't really make it much better IMHO and in many sequences actually make it worse.

For example, the Kilgore sequence with Robert Duvall is absolutely PERFECT IMHO in the theatrical cut. It starts, goes on, and ends just perfectly with Duvall's "Some day this war will end" line, which leaves viewers wondering if he'll actually miss the carnage or realizes -crazy though he is- that war needs to eventually end and with it, people like him.

It's such a freaking great scene and Coppola unwisely chose to return footage in the expanded versions which carried that scene further into... slapstick?! It involved stealing Kilgore's surfboards and... yikes did it not work, IMHO.