I'm quoting myself because its funny how people downplaying Tolkien's influence "missed" to justify the above...
Well, you know, player races is just one aspect of D&D. If I was to assume page count indicated importance, I'd also have to say it's a pretty minor aspect of D&D.
- How many classes are inspired by Tolkien?
- How many spells are inspired by Tolkien? (Note that spellcasting in itself is definitely _not_ inspired by Tolkien!)
- How many magic items are inspired by Tolkien?
- How many monsters are inspired by Tolkien?
- How many adventure modules are inspired by Tolkien?
Really, to _me_ it's obvious that Tolkien's influence on D&D is only present to about the same extent as Tolkien's influence is present in almost any fantasy novel.
The races in Tolkien's work have become a staple. Take the Earthdawn setting or even better Shadowrun: Both settings have elves, dwarves, orks, and trolls. Would you call Shadowrun 'Tolkien-esque' because of that?
Imagine if D&D had a 'Jedi' class. Would that make D&D 'Lucas-esque'?
I've designed a homebrew rpg setting that featured a class that was strongly influenced by the Jedi but that didn't mean it was anything like the Star Wars movies.
It also featured coeurl (from the Space Beagle novel; rumored to have served as the inspiration for D&D's displacer beast) as a player race and a race that was immediately reincarnated in a different body after death (similar to D&D 4e's deva race).
I was just borrowing ideas from a wide variety of sources and turned them into my very own creation. Just like Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson did with D&D.