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This is an interesting thread. I haven't got time to read it now in full but I will write a few lines nevertheless. Pardon me if it's already been said.

The children of Illuvatar and the dwarves all had a free will from their perspective. Anything else is absurd. If you have no free will, you might as well stay in bed. After all, it's predestined.

Without free will you can't make any moral choices. Frodo would be no better or worse than Úgluk the Ork. Elves, dwarves and even the Ainur would be mere puppets, much like Aule's dwarves were before Eru granted them - that's right - free will.

But if you look at it from the omnipotent Eru's perspective and his Great Music, it isn't quite as simple. No one, not even Manwe, can fully comprehend his great plan. A man trying to understand the designs of Eru would be like an ant trying to learn advanced integral calculus. Maybe men do have the special gift of being able to make their own destiny whereas the other talking people don't. From Eru's perspective this would be possible, but from ours, it wouldn't be comprehendable.

Or is it just me?

(I might return with a better thought out post when I've got time to browse the books and the thread)