Sage Hobbit movie advice for PJ?

[the phantom]

then why would it hurt to give Bard a love interest?

It would hurt because when people add extra stuff to Tolkien it's seldom as good as Tolkien. It would be like me trying to stick a few bars of my own into the middle of a Bach violin concerto. I've had some experience so it wouldn't be too bad- but it certainly wouldn't be on level with the rest of the piece.

I suppose a bit of love could be put in, if only to satisfy the non-purists.

And non-purists are more important than purists? You have to pick one or the other, because if you put something in to satisfy non-purists it's automatically going to annoy the purists.