How the Ring verse got into Elven lore is no real puzzle at all, I think. During the Council of Elrond, Gandalf says of the verse,
Quote:
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Out of the Black Years came the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed.
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The verse is not just a creepy poem; it is, I believe, the spell through which Sauron bound the lesser rings to his, including the Three which he apparently knew about, but had never touched. It's not terribly surprising that the Elves would remember it.
How they heard it, or if only those who owned the Three heard it, is perhaps the only real puzzle. That and where Sauron learned how to make such nice poetry (though if he could invent the Black Speech, one might suppose that he if no one else could write poems in it
).
The rather conspicuous consumerism of the Hobbits also doesn't surprise me overmuch. Even though they were unaware of it, their land was being protected from some of the worst hardships of the world. Unlike virtually every other corner of Middle-earth, they had no need to support a standing militia to protect their lands and their borders; the last Enemy incursion they were required to fight directly happened quite some time ago, by the time of LotR. Not that they couldn't have defended themselves, but when there is no need to do so for long periods of time, people forget, evil things become fodder for pub tales and scary bedtime stories, and the resources that might have been used to support an army or some such are turned to other, more pleasant things. If the Shire had suffered from drought or blights on a regular basis, there doubtless would have been a greater prudence and wariness about the future, but they seem (to me, at least) to have reached a state where the average Hobbit doesn't worry about being attacked or about where the next meal will come from (even if some folk have fancier meals than others). As Gandalf has said about them, you have to put a Hobbit in a pinch to see what is truly in them, and since they seem to have an uncanny knack for avoiding pinches, it's no wonder they appear bucolic, naive, and fond of pleasures and comforts.
I believe that's part of the point of Bilbo's extravagant party at the beginning. It's a kind of conspicuous consumerism at its height in the Shire -- but once the party is over, literally, reality comes in and rears its ugly head. It's time for all the Hobbits to grow up as a people, to take their place in the world as a part of it, able to both provide for themselves and defend themselves. We see this growth in the Hobbits that become part of the quest, and it is reflected back home, where we don't see it until the end. I always found this rather nicely done; the perils and trials of the four Hobbit companions reflected some of the things that were happening in the Shire, which we didn't see (in more than rumors or prescient glimpses) until they returned home, when it was no longer quite the surprise it might have been, had any of the four remained naive until the end. LotR thus has a more "happily ever after" feeling at its beginning than at its end, which is almost more "once upon a time," an end that is a new beginning.
Whoa, where did that come from? The things that creep out of my head after morning meditation...