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never began Beren & Luthien
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Actually, one of the first things he turned to after LotR was a revision of the Lay of Leithien. Of course, he only got as far as Beren's arrival in Doriath.
I have to say I disagree with the notion that Tolkien's creative powers were in decline after LotR. The 'Lay of Leithien recommenced', the 'Narn', 'Wanderings', 'Smith', the Annals, the later Quenta Silmarillion - in all these things I think his writing surpasses the pre-LotR texts. I do agree that, on the whole, I'd rather have a full Atanatarion than all the Athrabeths in the world; but I think the issue is one of focus rather than ability.
It also ought to be noted that fairly full
pre-LotR versions of both 'Beren and Luthien' and 'The Fall of Gondolin' do exist. In both cases, numerous details differ from the later accounts, but again in both cases the overall structure of the story remained more or less the same. I do regret the fact that the post-LotR versions of these weren't finished, but I think the versions that do exist are great works of art themselves.
On a related note, there has been a lot of talk of a planned 'trilogy' of tales. It should be noted that the number of 'Great Tales' depends on how you count them. The figure of three comes, as far as I know, from a note from the 1950s given in HoMe X, in which the three tales are to be: 1. Beren and Luthien, 2. The Children of Hurin, and 3. The Fall of Gondolin and the Rise of the Star. In this scheme, the third tale clearly encompasses both 'The Fall of Gondolin' and 'The Voyage of Earendil'. It seems very unlikely to me that Tolkien would have considered the 'Atanatarion' to include all these stories but not 'The Ruin of Doriath' (which is inextricably linked to the others); for this reason, I'm inclined to think that when he wrote this note he intended 'The Children of Hurin' to include both the Turin Saga and the story of Thingol's downfall (which is, after all, ultimately a consequence of Turin's fostering). That Tolkien still intended to retell ‘The Ruin of Doriath’ on a large scale seems fairly certain, given ‘The Wanderings of Hurin’ and the proposed title ‘Sigil Elu-naeth’.