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I have read the HOME volumes dealing with LOTR, and while I did find that knowing some things, such as the fact that Strider, the future King Elessar was in origin a 'wild' Hobbit to be illuminating, I don't feel that the knowledge was of itself much value in aiding my appreciation of the books.
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This is a different animal I think (not that you said otherwise): with
The Lord of the Rings we have the author's version of it, published for a readership at large. With the Silmarillion we do not; and for those of us who do not accept the constructed versions as canonical then external chronology (revsions and so on), no matter how complicated, or natural as far as revision is to be expected, is important for the construction of our personal legendariums.
My personal Silmarillion can even be shifting, but if I know Tolkien rejected X
after Y then it becomes an important factor in my mind.
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In any work of fiction, and especially one such as LOTR, having such a complexity of mythos which includes not only an imaginary place, but races of beings, and even well-developed languages, that there would be a tide of changing conceptions both during the writing of the books and in considering them after publication, seems only natural.
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Agreed.
But again for myself the notion of (for example) 'I like idea X better than Y' isn't good enough if I know Tolkien only thought of X in 1925 and rejected it twice in 1950 and again in 1968.
I agree we will quite
naturally enough find revisions over the years, but I (and I think not only me if not everyone admittedly) also
naturally want to know 'the story' too, and the story is not a mountain of sometimes conflicting material written at different times. I think (but could well be wrong) that your choice of the constructed versions as 'canonical' illustrates this natural desire -- I think it's part of why these versions exist actually, to provide what I call the internal experience.
But the mind is nimble
I feel I have the best of both worlds: the readers versions for one kind of experience (the constructed versions), and the information to be able to construct my personal Silmarillion or Children of Hurin based on my decisions (and those based on the texts as presented in
HME at least), not Christopher Tolkien's -- but that is not to say that I disagree with a given decision Christopher Tolkien has made,
necessarily, but rather to say that I am not constrained by his constraints in any case.
Enjoyment of a work is another matter. I can, and certainly do, enjoy reading a chapter from
The Book of Lost Tales for example, and I like or even love some concepts within it -- that said, I yet want to know if we have Tevildo the cat in 1916 or 1968! An arguably silly example here, but in general I think I want the same thing you want, and get out of the constructed Silmarillion... I just want to also construct it, for myself, based on what I think I see Tolkien doing.
I can only construct so much of the Elder Days through the works Tolkien himself published (although maybe that much is more than some might think), but to my mind
chronology has weight (when faced with no 'final' version), and it did to Christopher Tolkien too, it's just that he had other competing concerns, as always choosing the 'latest' notion or text doesn't necessarily make for the best internally consistent version, especially if on feels tasked to
try to reimain an editor and not a writer.
But it seems clear to me that external chronology had a significant role to play in the making of the constructed
Silmarillion and the constructed
Children of Hurin. How could it not? It just isn't the only concern.
For example, in my personal Silmarillion or Children of Hurin Turin is wearing the Helm of Hador when he faces Glaurung at Nargothrond. It seems clear enough to Christopher Tolkien that this was going to be the case
as far as anyone can tell (again Tolkien can surely change his mind for his own 'published' version, in theory), as opposed to the earlier idea of the Dwarf-mask...
... but I don't have to worry about 'writing it in', or deciding whether I should or not, which decision then creates the further question of what happened to the Helm of Hador later, which Tolkien considered but again did not fully 'flesh out' enough I guess. More writing? What is more 'faithful' to Tolkien, tinkering with his passages to try to work in a later text or idea, or less tinkering using an earlier but obviously rejected idea? I am not JRRT's son and don't have to worry about overstepping any personal choices Christopher Tolkien might have made based, even in part, upon the fact that he is JRRT's son...
...I can imagine Turin is wearing the Helm of Hador at this point based upon Tolkien's existing writings, and for it to be 'true' within the Secondary World I don't have to write anything more than Tolkien did, as no one is reading my 'book' but me.
But I needed Christopher Tolkien's amazing scholarship to arrive there
I'm not sure I necessarily disagree with the choice of the Dwarf-mask, and I'm not sure that's how Christopher Tolkien himself imagines the 'true' details of this encounter within Middle-earth, but he had considerations for writing a book that provides a certain type of experience for the reader...
... considerations that I do not have in any event.