100% agree with the hobbit quests (it's the main reason I don't like most of them).
But I love the Black Riders quests. I find them all to be maximal thematic, as the relativly strong combat aspect isn't really a problem for me. It's a basic game mechanic and quests with a low enemie count often turn out boring. Casually questing through without having to fear enemies would destroy the illusion of the scary black rider for me. But giving hobbits boni against higher threat enemies is a fair enough deal to symbolise, that you don't want to face these guys, but have to overcome your fear to win the scenario. Looking at the combat more of a "running away" than actually "killing" the riders helps too. Obviously you could ask why a dagger helps you at running away, but I guess it could help you climb 
Of Course it would have been awesome to make the black riders quests more or less combat free and I think there could have been a way to alter the gameplay so much, that you have a combat replacement, that doesn't abbadon the combat stats, so you could completly forget them, but you might as well keep it simple and straight out battle the riders, what is easier for new players, who, let's say, played the core set and then bought the black riders. Completly overthrowing the combat mechanism could easily confuse them. Writing this thinking about some custom rules for the black riders quests seems like an interesting idea...
