Iirc, froto had to put the ring on for him to see from a distance. And once Gandalf came in on the gryphons, they started cutting through Saurons forces like it was nothing. Glorified pigeons? Maybe. But the undead mud orcs got rolled multiple times from what I remembered. Even at the one place on the side of the mountain. Granted a undead ghost army came in pretty clutch. But it wasn't like they caught the hobbits even when they were on foot. Give the little guys a mount and some wings and I would say they had pretty good odds, plus they could have just flown over mount doom and dropped the ring right? They wouldnt even have had to land. Could have been back in the shire throwing back pints by the end of the first movie. Granted that wouldnt have made for a very epic tale.

---