Ithilien sounds fabulous! I would love to camp there, although I could do without the "pile of charred and broken bones and skulls", couldn't you? ;-)
On Denethor: I get the feeling that he was a hard, stern, cold man - sort of like the stereotype of a 'Puritan'. He was often unreasonable, demanding things that he had no right to ask for. Probably his only soft spot was for Boromir, and once Boromir was dead... but it doesn't excuse his dereliction of duty. For a descendant of Numenor he sure didn't understand the idea of resisting evil to the last very well. As I see it, he gave up when it seemed all hope was lost.
For a man as "far-seeing" as Denethor was reputed to be, he was pretty blind to ideas that fell outside his experience. Like Boromir, he thought in terms of power as a weapon, we see that he expected his son to bring the Ring to him, as a weapon. I think that because for such a long time Gondor had held Mordor back by physical strength, strength became all that they could understand. The Northern Dunedain, the Rangers, also used physical strength to oppose evil, but they had the example of the Elves to show them that there were more kinds of power in the world, and that power should not be taken lightly.
Faramir, I think, understood that idea because he spent time with Gandalf. Hey, maybe those seventeen years while Gandalf was researching the Ring weren't entirely wasted! We could postulate that Gandalf was 'cultivating' Faramir all along, probably saw him and his brother and father for what they all were and knew Adequate was the best of the lot.