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Certainly The Book of Lost Tales is 'lighter' in mood & tone in many parts than the later Silmarillion. It seems like Tolkien deliberately chose an increasingly serious tone for the work. If humour is absent from the Sil it is, as Aiwendil points out, a deliberate decision on Tolkien's part.
I think LotR is the greater work, among many other things, because of the presence of humour, which 'humanises' it. The odd thing is that in his attempt to create a modern mythology he omitted something central to just about all mythologies. Or perhaps its more subtle?
'The Silmarillion is a fundamentally humourous & comical work, but I have deliberately cut out all references to custard pies & rubber chickens. The Sillyness has been absorbed into the story itself...'
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