I'm always up for a LotR RP, but wouldn't it attract more people if it were set somewhere in the Third Age? Millennia after the Ring was gone pretty much only men were left in Middle-Earth, with all the elves gone to Valinor. The whole situation was more political than epic in fantasy terms, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything magical, and Lord of the Rings should be magical.

I participated in a tabletop game of LotR set during the War of the Ring in which we were tasked by Galadriel with bringing certain magical artifacts made in the First Age (like Turin's sword, some rings and pendants from Gondolin) to Grey Havens where Cirdan would take them to Valinor before the evil guys get hold of them, all while the war was raging everywhere. There was a certain 'will' system of some sort which controlled how the artifacts influenced the players. Something like this sounds similar (or almost identical) to your idea, but lets the players be more creative as they can play more races, more classes, with different powerful artifacts and have more interesting battles and encounters, and since most of Lord of the Rings fans are more familiar with this setting thanks to the movies and the trilogy, of course.

I should also say that you don't need a big group for this. You can play this game even with two or three players if not many people want to join, as it's more of a guerrilla squad type of story. This lets you have different obstacles along the way, like big bears, trolls, bandits, wargs, shapeshifters, as well as orcs and goblins, of course.

These are just my thoughts, of course; you don't have to listen to me. I'm a sucker for Middle-Earth, so I'll play any scenario. :-)