What makes me uneasy is this pushing at boundaries that are there, ultimately, for our benefit too.
As I keep saying - nobody is denied the opportunity to play in Middle-earth, to create anew and to rewrite as they see fit - and what's more, with the net you can share it. Why, you can even write up some absolute filth if that is how you get your kicks, and the Estate does not stop you, even though it can. If your mind strays to parody, why, then they will even allow you to publish it and profit from it. They even allow the TS, close afiliates of the estate, to publish fan-fic in their magazine and there have been numerous comic books and other interesting things based on Tolkien and his work, including a truly barking whacko mad Doctor Who novelisation (check it out, it's a hoot).
You are already adding to the stories. What more do you want?
Nobody has honestly answered that.
Raynor admits not to having a commercial or ego interest, in which case, where's the beef? Get writing!
You know who decides if this stuff is permissible within canon or not? The readers, and they say it's fun but it aint canon - so I guess that's where the gripe lies. If folk are hoping to convince readers that their creation Tharg, War-Dwarf of the Second Age, Wielder of ElfScraper is the long lost son of Gil-galad then you are going to face a long, hard struggle. Many's the time someone on here has confused a D&D or PJ creation with a Tolkien creation and been shot down in flames (ironically, by some arguing against me here I must note) with the anguished cry "Tolkien did
not say
that! You Infidel!"
Be honest now...
And don't flatter yourself that if you are a genuine expert and a genuinely good writer that you will get away with formally publishing even a mild re-write, a filling up the corners type of thing, because someone very well known in the TS did just that after 'persuading' a certain someone and has met with widespread approbation (and eventually ridicule) from the community. And then think of other fan communities, most of which are far less formal and pedantic than the Tolkien one (we are the biggest pedants going) and how much they hate the intrusion of non-canon material. The 'mythology or not' argument is a big stinky red herring - Star Wars fans have that one too and in the end they come down firmly against sanctioned fan-fic and some quite clever novelisations as inevitably they are not by Lucas. Despite outmoded literary theory (and pointing to why such theories are bunkum) to the reader, to the fan, the Author is still the Master of the Piece.
What I say is be happy with things as they are - people will find the good stuff. They will find davem's poetic tale, they will find the witty Entish Bow, they will find the interesting Silmarillion project, and they may even find a certain narfforc's marvellous works on a shelf one day. Things are good. What do you want to start a war for? And more importantly to me,
why?
Far more fruitful is to think instead how you might draw attention to the good stuff - as there aint half a lot of chaff too, everyone knows that.