Without CT, our understanding of Tolkien would be considerably less than where it is today. We owe him an enormous debt. I've mentioned before how differently things were viewed before the publication of the Letters (done by Carpenter but with help from CT) and later HoMe. Our knowledge and understanding of JRRT was immeasurably changed by what CT wrote. CT also did a good job of covering bases with the Hobbit and language manuscripts by giving the blessing to other scholars to work on them.
But as a historian, I just wish that there had been a similar arrangement for Beowulf. I remember attending the medievalists conference at Kalamazoo while JRRT was still alive and hearing scuttlebut about the fact that JRRT had done a translation of the work but that it was not yet in print. I kept waiting over the years to hear something more and was disappointed when the agreement with Drout did not work out. I almost wish that CT had made HoMe a volume or two shorter and instead given us the Beowulf. But I am undoubtedly in the minority on this.
