Hmm... Dwarves in siege teams, I would have never thought of that... Actually I think the Dwarves are meant to be a support in the crown army, i mean, look at the similarities between their shields... X-D
I think they're both good, and since I have a lot of the old and new Castle sets, I think it depends on what theme or faction you want... I voted for Pearl to even it up... X-D
I have 2 of them sitting in front of my computer right now... Anyway if you think of how many things have Orc in them right now, people will just look at something in a fantasy genre with big teeth and are green and call them 'orc'. It's amazing how many things Tolkien spawned when thinking of them...
I personally need more Crownies in my army, but Troll warriors (or Orcs) would certainly look cool in ranks of five... Against my Crown army...
Still... It would be a pretty good set to have, if it wasn't a fake.. I don't have any UCS sets because they're too expensive :'-( but it looks better than the Minifig scale one.