What is the Reformation?

The Reformation breathed life into a situation that had become death for so many people. It does little good, I think, to say, "The Reformation has no relevance for Orthodoxy, because Orthodoxy didn't share in the series of abuses that led up to it." In fact, there are many ways that Orthodoxy shows the same spirit--legalism, lifeless formality, hyper-materialism in its understanding of sacraments, seeing church life as a fulfillment of objective obligations, etc.--that was present in the West, shortly preceding the Reformation.
"Converts" from Protestantism, and even from Catholicism, to Orthodoxy, inevitably have imbibed of some of the critical thought and valuation of freedom that comprises the Reformation, and bring this with them into Orthodoxy. This is a good thing. The correctives of the Reformation, to the extent they address the real human condition, are treasures that should forever inform our idea of what Church is, in whatever context we find ourselves. We may like to hermetically seal East from West, but reality--and, I suspect, God--is not so easily fooled. 
I question the idea that the Reformation is primarily the rediscovery of biblical principles concerning the process of salvation. Instead, I think it  may be helpful to think of it simply as this: the Reformation is an instance in which love was allowed to inform theology.