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In the two variant epilogues to LotR (in Sauron Defeated) Sam gives the reason for excluding Men from the Shire as being due to the actions of the Ruffians. Of course, this kind of isolation wouldn't work, yet, the Dunedain did have an obligation to protect the inhabitants of Arnor, as they still considered themselves its rulers. Also, their protection enabled the Ring to be kept safe for over seventy years. After the war it would have been simply callous to just leave the Hobbits to the tender mercies of outsiders after all their years of being protected. Clearly they will never be as isolated again - Elves & dwarves (even Ents!) could have passed through the Shire. And Merry, Pippin & Sam are effectively government officials in the post-war period. Even Aragorn himself will not enter the Shire, & awaits the hobbits at the bridge.
And after all is said & done, the Shire didn't survive forever - it did eventually get swallowed up by history, so I don't think Tolkien is offering us a 'happily ever after' scenario here. Having said that, as Flieger has pointed out, for all his condemnation of these gated communities with their 'embalming' tendencies & isolationism, on some level he wanted just that. He liked the idea that the Shire could continue just as it had always been, untouched by the tides of time - & I can't help feeling that Aragorn probably felt the same - 'May the Shire live forever unwithered'. Its a hold over from the Third Age, the time before the magic went away. So much has been lost with the fall of Sauron, the desire to hold on to what little is left is understandable, perhaps.
In the end, I think Tolkien himself was torn in two - part of him knew that this 'embalming' approach was wrong, unfeasable & ultimately ridiculous, as it would simply turn the past into a kind of theme park, yet at the same time the loss of such places was heart breaking to him. LotR may end with the Shire under the protection of the King, & men banned from entering, yet it begins with a prologue telling us that it all disappeared a very long time ago.
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