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it seems only we down here are altruistic devotees
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And maybe not even we. I know I expect to be paid for this.
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I guess I think of Christopher as an individual, not an extension of his father. Therefore what he writes is his, not his father's, though he uses his father's notes.
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I think that's where you're going wrong, Snowdog.
The Silmarillion combines J.R.R. Tolkien's writing with C.R.T's so that it's very difficult to tell who wrote which parts without some knowledge of the original text. HoME, on the other hand, is clearly divided into J.R.R.T's unedited writing and C.R.T's academic analysis of each piece, each clearly presented as such.
HoME are not new compositions from J.R.R. Tolkien's notes, but collected writings by him with editorial commentary on the presented work, much like an edition of a medieval document. The irony is that C.R.T. came to regret a lot of his changes to the
Silmarillion material, which is why he later published as many of the original texts as he could bring together. I think that his confidence in his ability to compile a truly definitive
Silmarillion waned as he read more of his father's notes and drafts, so that in the end he felt that he had to present the incomplete material as he had found it rather than in a complete and finalised form. I value his comments as those of someone who knew the author personally and shared much of his learning and professional experience.
CRT was also involved in the production of his father's two main works of fiction. His earliest involvement with JRRT's writing was proof-reading early editions of
The Hobbit, which was a task that his father set him when he was confined to bed with a juvenile heart condition; and JRRT also set him the task of drawing the maps for LotR. You will see the initials C.J.R.T. in the corners of all of these except in some new editions, for which the maps have been redrawn to fit on a smaller page. There are hints in the Letters that father and son had some very in-depth conversations about the Legendarium as a whole after JRRT realised that he would never be able to finish
The Silmarillion, so I doubt that anyone living is more qualified to comment on the work than he.
Actually, one small part of
The Lays of Beleriand isn't by either of the Tolkiens: C.S. Lewis made some textual comments on the manuscript of the
Lay of Leithian when J.R.R.T. asked him to read it, and those are published with the poem itself, also clearly labelled. Lewis' comments are worth reading in themselves, since he presented them as though he were analysing a medieval poem, 'quoting' a number of fictional critics in support of his points.
Personally I enjoyed the Lost Tales and the Lays, particularly the alliterative verse
Lay of the Children of Húrin, but that's a matter of personal taste. I even enjoyed reading quotations from one of JRRT's lectures about
Beowulf in HoME 5, so mine's probably dryer than most.