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The other problem with this approach is simply that (as I stated earlier) there is no final, coherent form to the Legendarium. There are conflicting versions of teh tales written over a period of six decades. Which version of the Tale of Gondolin, for instance, do you take as a basis for an 'official' retelling? The 1917 BoLT version (which is the only complete version) or the QS version, or do you take up the 1951 version as published in UT? Or do you just cobble together a version from the bits?
There isn't a coherent Legendarium for someone to take up. 'Middle-earth' is not, as I keep repeating, an objectively existing place, but a series of variant versions of tales composed over a long life by a man. Its not what some people insist on seeing it as. You can't, in all honesty, pretend that its something it isn't. No writer can take up the reigns & write a new story that would be accepted by either the Estate or fans as 'official', because however careful & competent the writer was he or she would inevitably contradict something Tolkien himself wrote, woud have to reject some of Tolkien's ideas - in effect 'finish off' Tolkien's painiting by painting over huge swathes of the original work. You'd lose the original work simply in order to get the canvas covered up.
Writing fanfic is one thing. Writing a new story that would be accepted as canonical is another. The first is open to anyone. The latter is rendered impossible by the very nature of the raw materials Tolkien left.
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