Eol --
This will be a brief answer as I'm just on my way out.
To me, the tale of Beleriand and its eventual drowning is Tolkien's most tragic telling. For, unlike Numenor, where it is primarily Sauron and the men who are the ones who brought on the darkness, this tragedy seems to encampass not only Middle-earth, but even the Valar themselves whom, I believe, must bear some responsibility, for what happened.
In that sense, the story of the Silmarils is far sadder than the Ring quest, both in its outcome and in the well-meaning individuals who miscalculated their actions as well as those who were corrupted. But there is another critical difference between the Silmarils and the master Ring. You ask the following:
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Were the Silmarils that Feanor created so long ago precursors to the rings of power, especially the master ring?
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I actually see a great difference between the Master Ring and the Silmarils. In the beginning, the Silmarils were created out of light and goodness. Even after all the tragedy, one Silmaril was set upon Earendil's mast so the people of Arda could see it sailing through the sky. It would still light their way, though from very far away. And a tiny splinter of that light actually became the phial of Galadriel which certainly had something to do with the defeat of Sauron.
All this is in sharp contrast to the Master Ring which was hurled into the cracks of doom to be utterly destroyed. This is because it was, through and through, a thing of evil.
In some ways, the tale of the Silmarils was more tragic precisely because these jewels started out as a thing of light and goodness. In my mind, the tale of Beleriand was the story of how the light became shattered and broken into many fragments. With the central light gone, each of us must cling to the little slivers that are left. The critic Verlyn Flieger wrote eloquently about this, and how Frodo actually became himself like the phial of Galadriel--a little sliver of light in a world of darkness.
So, while there are similarites between these objects, the differences are even more striking: one was an object of goodness that became perverted and shattered, while the other was evil from its first creation.
sharon, the 7th age hobbit