The intricate problem here is your example. "Take all the Middle Earth..." Yea, that's Middle Earth. I've already seen people demand fluff for Oerth, for Forgotten Realms, for Ravenloft, etc... anytime that it goes beyond the simple, I believe that as Psion notes, it's overall utility goes way down to the general public.
That is (in my humble and limited opinion) the point where you're wrong.
Fluff needs to inspire people. You cannot doubt the sheer endless wave of stories, adaptations, variations, copies and concept that roleplayers from all walks of life have drawn from the Lord of the Rings.
Similar observations can be made for D&Ds own and infamous Dark-Elf Ranger. He spawned legions of stories, characters & adventures mainly because this vision of Bob Salvatore was very compelling to a broad base of players.. those playing Forgotten Realms and those who don't.
And all the Drow-Mania only happend, because it got very, very, very specific.
After the Eberron CS was released, threads sprang up like mushrooms after the rain on how to fit Warforged into the Realms, how to make Sharn a Planescape town, how to use Valenar Elves as a basis for your own homebrew, etc..., etc... (and there is nothing like that now happening for RoD)
A compelling piece of fluff can even trancend the very borders of genre and come from different places all together.
Just think of the vast influx of swashbuckling pirate-games that sprang up after Jonny Depp played Captain Jack Sparrow or the never-ending demand for Dual-Sword-Wielding Darth Maul wannabies.
The overall utility of a good piece of fluff depends on how compelling it is, the visions and stories it paints into peoples minds, of what it inspires.
And any 'Writing-Ficiton-for-Dummies' will tell you that nailing down the fine and seemingly negligible details is one of the necessites to achieve something compelling.
All this generic, vanilla-flavor, watered-down vagueness simply does nothing of that. (or at least not too me, though my observations above are valid I believe)
(and I call bvllshjt, as you so eloquently put it, on anyone who says they don't need fluff: not even Tolkien could write an adventurestory out of thin air, so excuse me if i doubt that any of you could)
For any character that gets a fair number of skill points and a somewhat restricted list of class skills, it's incredibly valuable. For comparison, the granted powers of a Cleric domain tend to be roughly equal to a feat, and several domains simply add 3 skills to the Cleric's skill list. Able Learner makes ALL skills cost 1 pt each, though cross-class skills still can't be raised as high as class skills. The next time I play a Human character with a limited class skill list and high Int, I'm getting this feat at 1st level!
