[Maédhros]

First of all, you completely missed my point: just because Tolkien didn't write volumes on the accomplishments of the Vanyar doesn't mean they didn't do anything noteworthy.

I don't mean to say that they didn't do anything important, just that it seems to me that they didn't in general have the drive of the Ñoldor nor the same abilities to create things.

Secondly, you're asserting that the rebellion of the Noldor, and the atrocities that sprung from that, should be considered progress; an enrichment of Middle-earth. Hah! Violent uprisings are not progress in themselves, and are far more contemptible still when they bring no future good. Kinslayings! Treacheries! Bloodthirsty warmongering! Greed! Progress indeed.

Unfortunately in our world, wars make scientific progress, applications etc. War is a big motivator in that. I'm basing my view on what JRRT wrote in Morgoth's Ring:Myths Transformed

If we consider the situation after the escape of Morgoth and the reestablishment of his abode in Middle-earth, we shall see that the heroic Noldor were the best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction. And in the meanwhile, Men, or the best elements in Mankind, shaking off his shadow, came into contact with a people who had actually seen and experienced the Blessed Realm.
In their association with the warring Eldar Men were raised to their fullest achievable stature, and by the two marriages the transference to them, or infusion into Mankind, of the noblest Elf-strain was accomplished, in readiness for the still distant, but inevitably approaching, days when the Elves would 'fade'.
The last intervention with physical force by the Valar, ending in the breaking of Thangorodrim, may then be viewed as not in fact reluctant or even unduly delayed, but timed with precision. The intervention came before the annihilation of the Eldar and the Edain. Morgoth though locally triumphant had neglected most of Middle-earth during the war; and by it he had in fact been weakened

It seems that if the Ñoldor didn't fought against him in the way they did, Middle-earth would have lost more than Beleriand.