Mithadan
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Why does Sauron allow the lands before his Gate to be filled with potential hiding places? Would it not make more sense to reduce these lands to a flat, featureless plain which would allow anyone crossing it to be seen from miles away? In fact, this "Noman-land" allows Frodo, Sam and Gollum to escape detection and pass on to the south and west of Mordor where they eventually enter the Black Land. It seems to me that allowing his front yard to be so unkempt is a gross error in strategy that runs contrary to all military reasoning.
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Just a quick thought - or rather a quick quote from Brian Rosebury's book - Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon - which I gave in the Chapter by Chapter thread:
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..The defeat of the forces of evil should ideally appear, not as a lucky accident, or as a punishment inflicted from outside by a superior power (which deprives the actual process of defeat of any moral significance), but as the practical consequence of wickedness itself: Evil must appear as intrinsically self defeating in the long run. Sauron & his servants, despite their steadily growing superiiority in crude strength & terror, are hindered by weaknesses which are themselves vices: their lack of imagination, the irrational cruelty which denies them the option of voluntary assistance (the victim must be made to act against his own will), & the selfishness which disables their alliances.
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In other words Sauron brings about his own destruction by his
ofermod