Not that this is really a knock against Tolkien. But I think it's important to deal with the notion that instead of creating something new, the man mostly was very, very adept and very _dilligent_ at synthesizing the epic poetry and folklore of the various northern traditions into a huge and accessible tapestry.
Which is good, and is very appealing to the sort of kid who spent much of his childhood eagerly reading RPG sourcebooks and monster manuals (like me). But I think it's very short-sighted to claim that all fantasy is a Tolkien rip-off. <i>Tolkien</i> is a Tolkien rip-off.
D & D mythology is a direct ripoff of Tolkien. It was not the inspiration for it, it was a direct ripoff. Tolkien = humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls, dragons, etc. based in a medieval timeframe with magic. D & D = humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls, dragons, etc. based in a medieval timeframe with magic.
And a lot of modern fantasy games are direct rip-offs of d & d or tolkien (practically the same thing).
Northern European folklore was the inspiration for Tolkien. A lot of different sources of inspiration. There was no one story where humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls, dragons, etc. were all protagonists based in a medieval timeframe with magic.
It's very, very different. You seem to have a penchant for words, I'm surprised you don't see it.
Tolkien still stands out in my mind as one of the best story tellers I have ever read. He was such a good story teller that people are retelling them in every way they can imagine in books, films, role play games, computer games, all sorts of media. D and D, warcraft, Diablo, all Tolkien rip-offs. Even Harry Potter.
The awe inspiring bit is the ambiguity, the hints of all the other stories untold, the heroes with bit parts, mentioned in passing. He didn't just write a story, he wrote a whole universe. What he did is rare, I can think of only a handful of other works that pull off the immersion convincingly, Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Ian M. Bank's Culture, Lucas' Star Wars (if they'd have just left it at 4-6) and Herbert's Dune (just). And none of them quite touch the awesomeness of middle earth.
He wasn't just good, he was amazing. Pure fluke perhaps, as the article hints at, but what a great one.