I am aware of the failings of Tolkien's prose from time to time, and the stodginess of his poetry.

At the same time, Tolkien did something that was completely new. There had been some "fantasy" prior to Tolkien. One example that comes to mind is The Worm Ouroboros. Like Tolkien, it has tendentious prose, and like Tolkien, it is based on epics and strives to create a vivid and realistic "other world", though it does so mostly through overly florid descriptions rather than through heavy background information.

Despite the similarities, what Tolkien did was really remarkable, unique and above all, experimental. He wrote a story in the style of an old epic, he eschewed Latin roots ("orc" notwithstanding) and he built linguistic systems, histories and national characters for various nations. The whole series was heavily coded in symbolism, making it something of a fairy tale for adults. While there had been some works that came before him, he developed an entirely new set of concepts for fiction.

The lowbrow fiction that he spawned is nothing if not tribute to his talent and ability to move fiction in an "ideal direction", meaning that the direction in which he moved fiction was one based on ideals and ideas, realized in symbols that someone like Joseph Campbell or Carl Jung would find pregnant with meaning.

The shit that has tried to imitate Tolkien should not be allowed to cloud the bowl (yes, I'm full of it today). Despite whatever stylistic complaints you may have with his style, you have to recognize that it was experimental, and as such, some things work better than others in retrospect.

Also, some of the issues you have with his style probably have to do with the era in which he grew up, of overly romantic classicism that ended up being tempered by machineguns on the Western Front.