I love the Lotr movies and books, though I think the books are rife with problematic elements. Tolkien didn't really understand anything about structure or emphasis or pacing or foreshadowing, but for whatever reason the story works nonetheless. All things considered I think Jackson has done about as good a job imaginable with the material (TTT aside) and shaped together a truly awesome series of movies.
That said, I'm surprised that audiences have connected with these movies so much, I figured it would just be fans of the books who would like them, and even then I figured many of the purest would be turned away.
However i don;'t see how you can say that the FX tell the story, these films are brilliantly acted and the dialogue is superb for the most part, I would say most of my favorite moments are not FX moments, and my favorite battle remains the AMon Her battle at the end of fellowship, which has no FX.
But I do agree that LOTR is not for everyone, and I'm puzzled on how it has done so well as it doesn;t seem like the sort of thing most people would like.