Craig, we've gone round about this before, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

I'm not sure what, if any, authority a director had over a film's editing this early in the game. I would note, however, that Browning apparently shot the footage necessary to conform to the shooting script (allowing for the acknowledged loss of footage from the eleventh hour re-edit), and there is no existing material that isn't in the script. I'd also note that none of the divergences from the continuity of the shooting script appearing in the release version of the film comes without introducing continuity errors or rendering portions of dialogue meaningless or contradictory.