The Three Elven Rings

[Findegil]

My oppinion is that the bearers of the Three did not realy take any great risc. Celebrimbor and his companions had have time enough to remove the rings when Sauron made the One. I think that dominating a strong charachter like Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf through the rings was not a matter of one moment. For the Nazgûl it had taken long years and they had been of the realtively week mankind. For the dwarves Sauron failed completly due to their very special nature. In the case of Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain Sauron failled beacuse they used the time they had to remove their rings and were strong enough to resist the urge to use them again.
That means in the moment that Sauron would gain the one Ring, the bearers could take their Rings of and be save for the moment personaly. But As was explained Sauron would see all that they had done with the Rings in the long time in which they used it. It would also made clear to him who the bearers were and where the rings were. I do not think that Sauron could undue all the works done with the lesser rings but he could turn the use of the rings on a moral plain against the bearers to weaken their position and he would make the bearer the formost target of his miltary strategy with much more success since the protection from the Rings would be removed.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Zigûr]

Regarding the danger of continuing to use the Three after the One was rediscovered, would it not have been more dangerous to stop wielding the Three and left Rivendell and Lórien undefended by them? Those were safe havens necessary to enable the Ringbearer's progress to Mordor. I believe their use was risky but that they had little choice in the matter. Regardless, as has been observed, all would have been lost had Sauron recovered the One whether the Three were still being used or not.

A situation had been engineered in the North to ensure that Sauron was incapable of deploying his full strength against his enemies in any kind of concentrated attack - he had to assault Dáin and Brand, Thranduil and Galadriel simultaneously. Without Lórien being such a difficult target, Sauron might have been able to overcome Thranduil and, as he intended, combine his forces at Dol Guldur with those of his allies in Rhûn, who ended up having to besiege Erebor largely unsupported. Sauron launched three attacks against Lórien which he must have known could not succeed simply to stop Galadriel being able to come to the assistance of Thranduil or attack Dol Guldur.

My point is that I think the Three were actually more of a frustration for Sauron rather than a weakness for the Elves, and I think this is why he invested so much effort in trying to recover the One, which would instantly have made all of his enemies' designs moot. Otherwise he would have had to have expended great time and effort in concentrating his power in the North and hoping to deal with the Elves piecemeal, which may have required more patience than that of which he was capable.