You are of course right, Mr Platypus, that a film should not be honoured simply because it involved a lot of committment or drew big crowds.
But I feel that there is merit in the argument that films of this genre are disadvantaged in the awards stakes. They are often not considered serious enough to warrant nomination in anything but the SFX/costume/music categories.
Not that there have been many good films in this genre, and these are about the best that there have been. Personally, I consider (and I know that there are many who would disagree) that the time, effort, talent, creativity and vision of Jackson does deserve recognition. Assuming that RotK is as good as anticipated (by which I mean better than the first two), I think he and the film will be serious contenders next year.
Btw, one of the performances that I think deserves recognition, albeit that there is not (yet) any category for him, is Andy Serkis (Gollum). There is a good article, and a good thread, on this
here