The changes you note are rather minor and, frankly, I don’t see how they “emasculate” the characters you mention. And this kind of obsessiveness to very minor details is something only the real fanatics care about. When reworking characters for the screen, short cuts are always taken; I didn’t see them as ideology-based.
PJ absolutely destroyed, wrecked, butchered Aragorn and Faramir.
Just a minor tweak to some minor characters?