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Which begs another question... has technology remained stagnant in Middle Earth throughout the ages or has it advanced at all with time? Are the ships, weapons, etc, all the just the same in the third age as they were in the first?
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Putting aside the technology/art question (which is a pertinent one, of course, but as always I'm going to take the easy way out and sidestep the thorniest issue
), I think an argument can be made that the level of technology actually
declines over time in Tolkien's world: after Feanor, no more Silmarils or Palantiri were made. After Celebrimbor and Sauron were finished, no more Rings of Power were made (I'll admit, there are all sorts of good reasons for this to be the case...). After Numenor sank into the sea, no one made such strong ships anymore. Even the Trees and the Lamps could not be re-crafted. On a grander scale, after the face of the earth was marred by Melkor it could not be re-made in its perfection, and perhaps this is at the root of the idea of "technology" (or whatever it is) declining over time.
The other point you bring up, about levels of technology varying in different cultures, can be explained in another way, at least as regards umbrellas and mantelpiece clocks. The source for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is, of course, the Red Book of Westmarch, written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam. For all three of them, the Shire is home and it is the embodiment of safety and ordinariness (sorry--there's got to be a better way to make that word into a noun!). Therefore, when describing it, the authors take note of the comfortable and ordinary parts of their surroundings. But when they travel to Rivendell, to Lorien, and to Gondor, they are in foreign countries. They are awestruck by the timelessness of the Elves and the majesty of Minas Tirith. While I can't seem to get my mind around the idea of Celeborn with a pocket-watch (because of the uncertainty of passing time in Lorien), I see no reason why these things couldn't have existed in Gondor and even in Rivendell--the hobbits just didn't take notice of them because they were so ordinary. The descriptions of these places and the people living there are, as most travel narratives are, focused on what is different, impressive, or unique about the places being described. So Theoden may well have had umbrellas by the dozen, but Merry just wouldn't have bothered to tell Frodo about them.
EDIT: I just realized that the above is an awful example, because Merry of all the hobbits would have been the most likely to notice Theoden's umbrellas and mantelpiece clocks. He was interested in the similarities between the Rohirrim and the hobbits, linguistically and otherwise. I sure hope that doesn't deflate my entire argument! But if it does, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time!