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The sense of place is palpable in LotR
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I too have to defend the importance of setting in LotR. Without it, the book may not have gripped me in quite the same way. Each place travelled through or visited is very real due in no small part to the description of the setting. I have been to Rivendell, and I have been not only to The Shire, but right into a hobbit hole, and this was done by reading about them. This world is, to put it simply, vivid.
Each place emphasises the characteristics of those who live in those places. Think of how Lothlorien is constructed of tall and beautiful trees, echoing the characteristics of those who reside there, or how The Shire is simple, comfortable and homely, rather like the Hobbits themselves. This sense of place also tells us the history of the peoples of Arda. There are ancient barrows, which tell us that a great people once lived near the Downs, and we have Moria, to tell us of how strong and powerful the Dwarves once were. Yes, it may indeed not drive the story, but the sense of place not only takes us right into the picture of Arda that Tolkien had, but it also tells us what characteristics its people possess, and it tells us their history, and it adds that all important depth which we value so much. Even after the 'race' of men who inhabited the Barrow-Downs have long since departed, we still know they existed because of what they left behind, and we only know that because Tolkien shows us what they left behind.
This is true of our own landscapes. The places where we live or where we grow up really can define our characters. I grew up in a village where people naturally knew each others' business which has made me nosey; those who grow up amongst people of many other cultures often become very open to other ideas. Look at Aragorn, raised in Rivendell, and hence much more amenable to Elven ways than most Men.
This imperative of place is not unique to Tolkien. Two other writers who appreciated the importance of place were Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. In
Wuthering Heights, we see the contrast between the more elemental and much older house of the title with the genteel elegance of the house belonging to the more socially acceptable Linton family. If the situations were reversed and the Lintons lived at the Heights then the story would not be the same. In Thomas Hardy's
Return of the Native the nature of Egdon Heath almost becomes a character in the novel itself; it is brooding and temperamental, it hides people, it even kills.
The essence of place, the resonance it brings for us, is a deep seated sensation, one which is being hurt in this modern world of globalisation and the fragmentation of community. No longer do we linger in the places where our families have lived time immemorial, and we instead have 'progress'. Perhaps the loss of features of our landscape, the demolition of old buildings, cutting down of familiar trees, the building of roads through what to others might look to be ordinary fields, perhaps these losses have resonance to us because we are all clinging to any sign of the past, in a world which is always threatening to take us along with it whether we like it or not. I think Tolkien felt this too, the need to feel 'rooted' in a place, to have a 'connection' to somewhere. One of the great sorrows is that while our world is changing so fast about us, it is in a book that we find a place which is always familiar to us, and it is to a book that we have to go to find that comfort of place which we all seek.
I don't think its so surprising that there is such an interest in genealogy these days as many of us seek to find our roots in something; it is interesting that despite where we eventually end up on the planet, we always carry our names with us, words that give away our history; this too is echoed in Arda. I also think that one reason behind interests in ancient history is that we seek to find meaning within our landscape, to know what might have happened there in the past, and to know who lived there and what they might have shared with us. It is a natural need, at least for many of us, and this need is echoed by Tolkien's work.