Didn't make the movie suffer?
Throwing Ratha away after two scenes and no conclusion to his arc because he was obviously not some minor character; his first scene proves it when he immediately mentions Norman Osborn.
Tying something back to Richard Parker and how Richard never showed him any papers on the forum as Richard may have known Connors would abuse any kind of serum for his own usage.
Taking out that scene definitely made the movie suffer.
I was overreacting before aswell but I think I've had it figured now
The scenes they cut out are
The Goal post bending scene-It was ridiculous and had to be removed
A scene with Peter skating and jumping over cars and landing on top of a Lamp post-Although they looked pretty good in the Imax trailer,it doesnt make such a big difference,probably removed to make the movie shorter
The date scene with Gwen and 2 scenes with Billy Connors
The Peter stalking Connors scene,They replace it with him figuring out Lizard's hideout by seeing Lizards entering the sewers,though the first one looked better and logical but it doesnt make such a big difference
And Sewer scene and the Lizard and the girls scene in the Bathroom was probably supposed to be included and the reason I say this is because they had completely finished and touched up CGI as we saw in the sewer scene and the comic-con footage,they probably got into trouble with the censor boards with the Lizard-eating-people-angle.They probably had to remove it a lot later and because all the other scenes were already shot and put together,they couldnt do a lot to replace it well and did a make shift scene of Peter finding the animation in the Sewer and the arc about Ratha couldnt be completed
My point is,You cant really blame Sony completely here,a rise in the censor ratings would have hurt them hence they had no choice but to remove the scenes,its more of a case of poor planning rather than limiting the director's creativity like it was the case with SM3
You can blame them for removing the Date scene and the Scenes with Billy Connors but they probably did it to make the movie shorter-It probably saved up around 15-20 minutes