As the saying goes, Warlord, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
Tolkein didn't even create fantasy as a genre- its been around for a loooooong time. And many of his characters are actually archetypes drawn from other, earlier literary forms, like the classical epics European folklore. There's even a book or two about the writers who influenced Tolkein.
What Tolkein did was:
1) present epic/mythical/fairytale conventions in the form of a novel, and a well-written, readable one at that. A good deal of what most people think of as "Tolkein-esqe" actually came from European folklore and the great epics of classical literature. In a way, Tolkein "codified" European folklore.
2) create a world that was self-contained and deeply detailed, including languages. He was able to do so because he was a scholar of literature.
What some people call "modern fantasy" is little more than pulp/action fiction dressed up in the conventions of fantasy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Tolkein's work sometimes suffers because he used a slower pace than even most novels of the day- an artifact of epic liturature that seeped into his work. There are fantasy novels that lose none of the depth and richness of Tolkein's work, but don't have the pacing that many readers can find plodding.
Not intending to badmouth the genuine artists within the modern fantasy subgenre, but much of what I've read of it only rises to the level of the teenaged reader. The faster pace and higher action content of modern fantasy sometimes hides a lack of character development and deeper concepts. The goals and motivations of the main characters are simply...simple. They are often derivative of the work of writers like Tolkein, Howard, LeGuin and others.
While the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels may be enjoyable escapism, I wouldn't call them literature. They are definitely proving grounds for future talent, but even with that, you're not likely to find even those writers' best work in a franchised setting from a gameworld.
If you REALLY want to attack Tolkein's work, please don't compare it to that stuff. Try comparing it to the works of authors who aren't under the aegis of a movie or game company franchise- someone who has carved out their own little niche of the fantasy market. C.S. Lewis, C.J. Cherryh, Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, H.P. Lovecraft, Gordon Dickson, Michael Moorcock, Mary Gentle, Tanith Lee, Clive Barker, Fritz Lieber, the abovementioned Howard and LeGuin, and the list goes on.
