Amen about Lucas and Tolkein being concept guys first and foremost before being writers. I think both came up with a set of amazing concepts. I don't agree on one having some presence of story over the other, but then, I can see your point; LOTR's story is a subtler one than Star Wars, and while subtle is not better or worse, it places the two in entirely different categories as stories to me. Both utilized a barely spoken back story to give a feeling of reality to their stories, but Tolkein's back story is more in keeping with the themes of his story, as more of it was written beforehand, while Lucas' back story is more the logical conclusions he drew from what he'd already made, imo.