[Child of the 7th Age]

Hookbill,

But isn't the central question that of "temptation" : how people react when they touch the Ring, the extent of the lure and how they resist that? How could someone change the chain for Frodo and yet not give in to the desire to slip it quietly onto his own pocket, or at least think about it?

The question of what is required to make one a "Ringbearer" is an interesting thing to discuss, but less pertinent to the storyline itself, at least in my head. Boromir, for example, was not a Ringbearer, never got to possess the thing, and yet it defined the outcome of his life. It was the lure of the Ring that made it dangerous to even come in sight of the thing, let alone to handle it physically.