Good and evil is moral beliefs, not facts and this is what makes middle-earth a very similar place to the rock we live on. You all speak of strength and power as it was some sort of way to mesiure peoples worth, adn well, it is not. I think Tolkien thought of power (physical power, manipulative power and dominating power) as the very essence of what is "evil" (morally corrupt if you need a definition - at least that's what my dictonary says) and therefore something the heroes in this epic tale would actualy rather lack. All the characters shows weaknesses, except Sauron himself. Boromir was afraid of his father's thoughts of him, Aragorn of the task he needed to do, Frodo because he was so small compared to the problems... everyone has their inner struggle, except Sauron. I think this reflects Tolkiens view of evil, the perfect, almost machinery of a man-shell with either no will of it's own, or a will without any human values such as compassion or joy.
Therefore I find it wrong to try to set to forces up against eachothers by calculating their power. This is the place for serious descussions where every topic should be serious, and I don't see the reason for dreaming about three characters from a modern myth would do against eachother in a head-to-head fight. That is what we have computer games and RPGs for.
The reason why Manwë piced Gandalf for the 'task', we can only speculate around, but until now I think we're making progress: It may have been because he showed human qualities such as fears. It is once said, and will be said again, that courage is not to not know fear, it is to overcome it, and therefore Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo and especially Sam are very brave individuals, each having their own problems and feelings to handle. This is the true power to my eyes, the other one, wich you describe, has to be something else...
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