I like his vision of the books, in general. He's the only director except for newel who brought something to the movies which wasn't in the book.
Cuaron and Newell were my favorite, but for my part, Columbus was ok for the first 2, but I would've been very sad if he had done others because he's a child movie director and his camera style is too slow (see his other movies, it's always the same, calculated slows panoramics and travelling. The camera seemed to have a lot more fun in PoA)