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Originally Posted by obloquy
This is because "Jackson's Balrog" is not Jackson's at all, it's John Howe's, which I guarantee you had seen before, whether you recall it or not.
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True and yes, I had. Although I had seen no Tolkien art when I first read the book, and am pretty sure that Howe's depiction matched my own imaginings too when I first saw it. Difficult to be absolutely certain, because my original impression has almost certainly been influenced to a degree by art seen since. But I certainly do not recall it ever even occuring to me that the winged Balrog, as depicted by Howe and others, was wrong in any way (and I do recall seeing artists's depiction of Balrogs that struck me as "wrong", although not for any lack of wings). As I said, I never even considered the possibility that Balrogs might not have wings until I came here and read the articles on the front page.
In any event, the upshot of it all is that winged Balrgos are firmly impressed upon my mind and no amount of argument, however skillful on strongly grounded in textual evidence, is ever going to shake that.