Ahhhhh, faith vs. works topic. We meet again, old frienemy...
A thought occurred to me the other day: a whole lot of this particular rigamarole seems to only come up in the discussion of edge cases. Ie. what is the status of somebody who claims the name of Christ and yet seems completely uninterested in actually participating in the Christian life? It seems to me that both Protestants and Orthodox can agree that most people who are (assuming they have the right doctrine and the right church, at least) actually trying to some extent- going to services, struggling with their sins, saying their prayers- even if they often backslide are probably fine with God even if they don't meet some nebulous "has works" standard. The effort (and dare I say, the sincerity) is what is important.
The two traditions mostly seem to differ on the fate of the nominals. The Orthodox response seems to be "they're probably dead, sorry" whereas I think Luther and Calvin hold out some hope that their bare intellectual assent to the Gospel can still count as enough faith to save them. Of course, in a society where the nominals seem to dwarf the committed, it's highly understandable that their status would get a lot of focus (if only from people worrying about their nominal Christian relations, like I know I do sometimes).
So, I think in practice, Protestants and Orthodox basically share the same view of salvation of those who are willing to act in good faith (no apology for the pun).
Of course, I could be entirely off base here and/or unhelpful. So, sorry for that if it's the case.