This is a fascinating thread, and I'm a little hesitant to comment with what may be quite a simplistic point. To me Tolkien's approach to characterisation was quite sophisticated, and the result of his literary purposes. He was producing an epic, self-consciously so, and thus his method harked back to the tradition he was following, from Beowulf to Malory. Yet he was also writing a 20th century novel, and he had to take account of this (obviously, he had no choice here: however grounded in the past, he was a modern man himself). Thus he mingled modern characterisation (though revealed through action and dialogue, rather than internal monologue or third person analysis) with epic story-telling, but just enough to suit the medium he was (re)creating. His characters thus have as much 'personality' as they need to drive the story and engage the reader, but the creation of personality was not his prime purpose. (Though even here he is due more credit than some have given him: the maligned Aragorn is a good example. Re-reading his tense and rather aggressive first encounter with the hobbits with the information provided by the Appendices that he was lately from his mother's deathbed provides an undercurrent that is 'character'-driven rather than an aspect of the story.)
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