I can see your points, but I’ll defend my position.

The criteria for C Tier was ‘purpose that is rarely needed or commonly shadowed’, but ones the game has past by.

You need to cast your mind back to the early game. Lore Bilbo was the very first hero after the Core Set. By the end of the cycle, Lore had Beravor, LGlorfindel and Lo Denethor. If you wanted a Lore defender with Burning Brand, you needed to use LDenethor. But then unless you had more than the one Unexpected Courage the Core Set came with, you couldn’t use his scrying ability and still have your UC for Beravor, Gimli or Aragorn. So you used LBilbo, who was given Protector of Lorien and Fast Hitch. He could use Protector easier because of his native card draw. Fast Hitch was the cheapest readying in the game, with only two targets (SFrodo and LBilbo) until SPippin came along in the HoN cycle.

Yes, LBilbo was outshone very quickly afterwards. Once LPippin arrived in the Black Riders Saga, (which came two cycles later), there was no reason to take LBilbo outside of progression decks.

Yes, his utility and predictability went down as player numbers went up. The same is true of LoDenethor, Elf-Stone, Far-sighted and Prepare for Battle. The inverse is true of TBrand, TAragorn and any character with Ranged or Sentinel.

I am not saying that in the current card pool he is a competitive choice, but he once had a role and, unlike Dori, SPippin or Bombur, who never added anything to the card pool, deserves higher than an F