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The point is, if we avoid importing aspects of the Christian/Muslim/Jewish/(fill in the blank) Deity into Eru, we have a character who actually is 'vengeful, spiteful & distant',
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You clearly have a deity who is 'distant'. But I think that when you say 'vengeful' and 'spiteful' you are actually reading the Judeo-Christo-Islamic God into Tolkien's work. As I argued earlier to Lalwende, the only Old Testament style smiting we ever see from Eru is the destruction of Numenor. Now that may certainly be interpreted as an 'evil' act (though that interpretation is not the only one), but I think it would be quite a stretch to say that this alone gives the reader sufficient insight into Eru's character to label him 'spiteful'.
As for your caricature of Eru's acts of creation, it might be countered by a different caricature: a loving Eru gave the wonderful faculty of creativity to the Ainur, propounded a theme to them out of which they fashioned a great and beautiful thing, and even suffered one of them to attempt to distort and destroy the Music. Then he showed them the beautiful thing they had made and, in accordance with their wish, brought it into being so that they might enter it if they wished.
Now, I don't wish to enter into a debate concerning the Ainulindale. But surely it will be granted that if a negative caricature is possible, so is a positive one. And I would say that neither is correct - the one is a humanist reading of the God of the Torah, the other a Christian reading of the God of the New Testament. Both bring in preconceived notions that derive from other sources than Tolkien's Legendarium.