I tend to love Tolkien's body of works. But you really have to love them for what they are, if you like him.
He's not conventional, and although he doesn't put you inside the character's heads, he puts them in situations where you really have to think in order to realize there is some brilliance there.
For instance, in the Silmarillian, you have an orphaned Elf named Feanor. And he ends up bitter and leads his people on a quest that borders madness. He uses a mythological approach instead of a common everyday approach because at this time he was writing a mythology for England and not a story for popular culture. So, it's very discriptive, but there's very little conversation.
But if you break down the psychology of how people might act if they felt they were a burden to their mother and father, he's a classic case. Feanor's mother lost her will to live after her son was born. Then his father went into a depression, and although he loved his son, he never felt he was good enough to make his father happy. So he becomes resentful (as an adult) when his father takes another wife and sires a new family. He has contempt for them.
Likewise in LOTR, if you look at how Eowyn responds when she finds out Aragorn is going to the paths of the dead, and refuses to take her. Essentially, she acts like someone who has lost her parents, her adopted brother, and her uncle to madness. She basically goes into a funk and doesn't want to live anymore. Now, she is a heroine, and much can debated about her motives. But she doesn't say she wants to go out and "live" and have victory in the war. She wants to go out and die.
Now, this suggests more than her being brave, but something very subtle, almost saying, "Aragorn if you don't take me, what do I have to live for?" People who have abandonment issues become very possesive of people. They can fall in love very quickly, and then go into a depression if it's not reciprocated.
So, Tolkien is unconventional, and if some think he's trite, I think they're mistaken. If people look, he's very deep. And in fact, if you look at the hobbits, you might see what some of the people in the trenches were like. Common everyday people trying to make light of difficult situations. Frodos, who were bakers and accountants fighting in horrible situations. It's all in how you look at the stories and what you are looking for.