My brother in Omaha said extra scenes are just filler, so I timed the 14 minutes added to the Almost Famous bootleg cut | Deleted Scene Hype - SMM Buzz
Extra scenes as filler is just wrong most of the time (and your brother probably never sat through the director's cut of anything). Timed it yourself, that is real work, and honestly the 14 minutes in Almost Famous matter. Most of that stuff is not filler, it is character stuff that makes the band feel like a real band you would want to hang with. The "Stairway" scene alone changes how you see Penny and William by the end. Filler is when nothing happens and nobody grows, and that is not what is going on here.