Anchorhead said:
As far as going back and changing past works to try and force them to fit later works; That's something I just can't make sense of. To me, it's a slap in the face to an artist's original fans, as well as a lie. The past can't be changed - no matter how hard you try to make it for the original fans to remember - no matter how many times you lie about what you originally said & did. Yes, I'm looking at you Mr. Lucas.

While Tolkien is guilty of changing the Hobbit to fit LOTR, here's another thing in his favor: He didn't pretend that the alteration was part of his "original vision". And, while there is some validity to the notion that by altering the Hobbit he muddles the plot point in LOTR, realize that he does include a preface in the Hobbit stating that the story of the riddles used to be told differently, but the truth was discovered and so now it has been updated. It's rather clever how he explains the discrepancy in LOTR, and the change in the Hobbit preface.

And to another point, it is quite understandable why certain fans would want to get ahold of an original printing to have the entire original story bound and in a complete volume, despite the feasibility of the "work around" I described above.

Vaderisnothayden said:
Middle Earth was all JRRT (except his son's posthumous edits in the Simarillion). The OOT is way more than just Mr Lucas.

Very good point. And one which we are all aware of but I don't think it was yet brought up in the context of this discussion. Lucas withholding the original is an insult to, as one example, the ILM crew whose work was replaced by CGI.