[Kuruharan]

4. In a world where gut feelings are as important of more important than common sense then was Gandalf not following his feeling odd?

I, along with symestreem, would like some clarification on why this is so.

There was no reason to believe that the One Ring had not washed out to see until Gandalf noticed Bilbo's ring. Remember, Sauron in the form of the Necromancer had just suffered another defeat, one which would not have been possible if he had the One Ring. At this point, there was no reason to believe Sauron would return. He needed the ring for that, and the ring was lost.

While I agree with the gist of symestreem’s statement, I feel that it should be acknowledged that Sauron did flee of his own accord. However, there was no way that the Wise could know this. They only had enough information to judge the matter on face value.

It is in the year 3001 TA that Gandalf suspects that Bilbo's ring can be that of Sauron. What if Bilbo's ring turned out not to be that of Sauron, what could the good guys have done to defeat Sauron at so late a date in the TA? What was the plan? Did they even have any?
Could they overthrow Sauron by force of Arms? No.
What in Gods name would they have done if they had not found the One Ring?

They would probably have conducted a nasty protracted defensive war. Weird things happen when the real gut-splitting and axe-smacking start. As was actually seen, the forces of Good were quite capable of inflicting devastating defeats on Sauron’s armies. They may have forced Sauron to draw off for a time.

But, aside from this, the Wise (and Gandalf in particular) demonstrated their competence by recognizing what to do with the Ring when they had it and by doing their best to see it through. Gandalf admitted that he made mistakes but that does not mean that he was incapable of the task at hand. Very few people can accomplish anything without making mistakes of some sort.