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I wonder why Tolkien chose the path he took - can't help wondering how much influence his correspondents had in the post LotR period, with their constant questioning of the works theological credentials, or their pointing up of 'similarities' with Christianity. I can't help feeling that Tolkien the amateur theologian/philosopher took that path too eagerly, & that we lost probably his greatest work for that very reason.
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Yes, that is possible. Tolkien was deluged with questions in his final years and many of these (though far from all) touched upon "religious and philosophical" issues. While something like that could constitute a "distraction", I still think there is a great deal more going on than that.
The question that I keep asking is whether Tolkien still had the same ability to create when he was older that he did when he was middle aged. When he was younger Tolkien had enormous pressures on his head.....the need to produce as an academic, the money required to pay off piles of hospital bills, the time to be a good father. Despite all this, those were the most productive years of his life.
Once the money from Rings started coming in and his children grew up, some of those pressures were reduced. That was even more so in retirement when he found himself with time on his hands. Theoretically, with that huge chunk of extra time, he could have found the hours to put at least a few of his major stories into shape as well as producing something like the Athrabeth. The more basic question is this: did he still possess the star that gave him entry to faerie, or did he feel that it had slipped away? There are some authors who have that ability right up to the moment they die. Many stop writing completely, and still others continue to write but what they write lacks that inner magic that makes stories come alive . I would honestly put Tolkien in the latter category. I find Tolkien's later writings interesting for their ideas, but I do not warm to them the way I do to the magical stories of his younger years.
I don't think this was just a lack of time, answering peoples' letters about why the characters did, responding to fans' personal questions, or even getting "fixated" on religion, though all those could have played some part. (Indeed, I think an argument can be made that it was PJ's movies that gave rise to such a fascination with Tolkien's religious roots.) Many of those same letters raised questions about the First and Second Age so that they actually could have been an impetus for Tolkien to turn again to his source material and begin to write anew. Sadly he did not.
I there are two reasons for this. First, Tolkien seemed unable to pick out one story and focus on that alone. He was always jumping from one aspect of the Legendarium to another. He was so in love with Middle-earth as a whole that he couldn't focus on one part of it to the exclusion of all others. If only he had done that... If only we had a complete Tale of Gondolin, or Beren and Luthien. I think we would all trade in the later writings for that. I do feel that the process of aging separated Tolkien from faerie. Aging does change people. I have watched this happen in myself and in parents and friends. It can be painful to see. Yet this is the doom of Man, and I do not think the older Tolkien was capable of producing the same magic that the younger one did.