You are right, it was a poor choice of words and not quite what I meant.
The show can have scenes that we would never see in the books- those without any POV character. It is a key difference. Whether it is used effectively is questionable, but I think the additional degree of freedom is nice.
If you aren't around a POV character in the books the outcome for a character can be frustratingly ambiguous, even if they are important. Maybe this is the beauty of it. But I like resolution.
What would give the audience more satisfaction isn't what's right for the story. I'm not talking about the success of the show and its ability to draw a rating. I'm talking about the craft of storytelling.
Anyone can say 'Well, HBO is making money so STFU' but fuck that. How does HBO making money benefit me or the integrity of the narrative? It's the same argument as with comics. They tell shit stories but they sell and then people like to argue that because it made money, it was the right decision. No, it was the right BUSINESS decision. It's not even remotely the same thing.
Sandor isn't a character as much as he's a plot point. What happened to him may endear him to audiences, may make him their 'favorite character' or whatever else they want to call him, but the tragedy of his life isn't the story. It's simply there to give the character a tortured past that explains why he is the way he is and to serve as a maturing element for Sansa and Arya.
We know everything we need to know about Sandor. We knew everything we needed to know about Robb. Martin has said that he wishes he would have thought about doing some Robb POV chapters in retrospect, but whose to say that the story would have turned out the same way had he done that? Whose to say it would be better or worse?
I am not going to sit here and say 'the books are perfect' because they're not. But there is a lot in there that isn't making it onto the TV show that is better than some of the stuff they've chosen to do.
It's like Norton said. TV is a different medium and the show runners have to include mor eof what they think will keep people watching. It would just be nice for them to take a look at the books again and not lose sight of what's going on.
The show feels, and this is just my pure idle speculation, like the show runners have chosen to execute the vision in a way that is equal parts what they like about the story and what HBO mandates they focus on. Martin gets to hang around and be involved, but I highly doubt he'd be able to say or do much if they decided to have Arya learn a spell that allowed her to become fifty feet tall and stomp King's Landing to ruins underfoot.
The TV show is nice. I enjoy it. But as a fan of the series, I feel it could still better while still satisfying HBO's mandates.