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Would your appraisal of the events be different if there were no narrator?

Absolutely. Since it is a play of recollection, not having a narrator would cause the play to lose it's personal touch. Because there is so much weighing on Tom to support his family while his mother concerns herself with other things (Laura's suitor),his perspective is crucial in understanding the differing priorities in this family.

In reply to #1:

By using Tom as the narrator, Tennessee Williams tells his play from the retrospective point of view. Tom is really two characters in the play: the young Tom enduring life in that apartment and the older Tom who is remembering that past. As the narrator, Tom understands much more about himself and about life than he was able to understand before leaving home. There is sadness in him where before there had been anger and resentment and longing. In his closing speech as the narrator, Tom brings a special poignancy to the drama as even Amanda is shown with "dignity and tragic beauty." Without Tom's retrospective point of view, many of Williams' themes and greatest ironies could not have been realized.

Some other modern American writers who also used the retrospective point of view very effectively are Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Edith Wharton in Ethan Frome.