One of the real problems for performers these days are the critics. So many of them demand total adherence to the score: no cuts, no reorchestration, and no shenanigans like weird phrasing, extreme dynamics etc. Conductors who dare make the music fit their ideal are skewered in reviews for their vision. In the dramatic arts, we expect actors and directors to mold a play to fit their vision and the times, but somehow in music we have become stuck in a groove. It's so hard for young conductors these days especially because of recordings. Who has the guts to do anything out of the ordinary with say the Mahler 4th, knowing your going to be compared to Reiner, Szell, Solti, Bernstein, Klemperer, Haitink, Maazel, Fischer, Kletzki and others who have turned in dazzling accounts. I don't find Stokowski too interesting (I think he ruins so much music) but there's no one out there who would take the risks he did.
On the other hand, I personally don't like cuts at all. It disfigures music. I may wish the composer had made some judicious edits but since they didn't, the conductor shouldn't. I have to admit that the finales of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and the Manfred are both improved by the cuts that were so often taken, but no one will record them that way anymore. (Come to think of it though, I do have a recent Manfred with Fedoseyev who butchers and disfigures it beyond the pale.)
Orchestration changes are a tougher matter. Playing in orchestras myself, I get a first-hand view of why it's sometimes needed. But please, no xylophone in Scheherazade, no timpani on the last note of the first movement of the Rach 2nd. And don't even think about retouching Mahler, Elgar, or Puccini.
