By all means, friend away. And you're right, there's a very real difference between a bit of research for adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, and getting so obsessive over the details you can't enjoy the story.

I'm glad you think I write Tolkien well, but I must confess that it's because I am a style sponge. Having a fairly barebones style of my own I find it easy to take on the characteristics of another writer for the sake of a story. I do look fairly carefully at Sam's dialect when I read, but that's because I'm always looking for Sam!