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Why did the movies turn Saruman into Sauron's toady? True, he was corrupted by Sauron's will, and his machinations ultimately served Sauron, but that was never his intent. He is a peer of Sauron cosmically speaking and he was very cunning in his own right. Moreover, he was an interesting villain.
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I definitely agree with him being an interesting villain. Saruman is indeed, fascinating and in many ways you can say he is a scientist, breaking down things and studying the parts...although it turns out his motivations for his research is to just gain more power, not to have deeper understanding or to really help anyone.
Although, I don't think the movies did a bad job with his portrayal. Christopher Lee is an immensely talented actor as well as being an avid Tolkien reader, he knew how to play the part to show Saruman was after the Ring for himself, not to be Sauron's "toady." There is a scene in FOTR when Saruman is in a room by himself after using the palantir and an orc stumbles in asking "what orders from Mordor?" Lee's body language is slumped and it's almost as if he's sick, but it's definitely portraying the conflict that at one point Saruman had to go through in his personal corruption. He feels now the charade is up, he can't realign with the West because he spilled his true intentions to Gandalf, and he starts feeling the vice he's caught in trying to play Sauron as a fool.
There is one version told in UT: The Hunt for the Ring, where the Witch-King pays Saruman a visit and it creeps him out enough to try to go talk to an imprisoned Gandalf again about joining together to defeat Sauron, but by this point Gandalf had escaped. Anyway, I just meant that I think FOTR and TTT portrayed Saruman well mostly because Christopher Lee knows how to play his roles.
Your point about his botched ROTK disappearance (and death in the extended edition) is spot on though. Actually, it angered Lee enough to publicly say that he was boycotting the extended edition premiere. I mean it was clear from the beginning that PJ wasn't going to film the Scouring of the Shire, which was fine and understandable in my opinion. But because of where TTT ended, it left a significant loose end to tie up in ROTK and that's how the beginning of ROTK felt like.