The key to the significance of the word 'pocket' can be decoded by the use of an anagram. Rearranging the letters of 'pocket' gives ... nothing whatsoever. It is therefore necessary to cheat, QED.
Extracting the letter 'c' because all these pocket-references occur in the sightless dark, and the letter 'o' because, as the shape of the ring, it is an evil influence, we are left with 'kept', which is, as Mhoram pointed out, the crux of the problem LotR delves into: the ring was 'kept' by Isildur rather than being cast into the Cracks of Doom.
Returning to the original question, it seems clear that LotR is a treatise on the darker implications of the 'keeping safe and handy' function of the humble 'pocket'.
As a 'pickpocket', Bilbo served, not necessarily wittingly, as an opposing influence to this apparently harmless 'keeping' function: that which the pocket attempts to keep safe, your pickpocket gallantly loots. The pickpocket is thus an agent of spiritual renewal, of release from the covetousness and greed that the 'keeping' of a favorite trinket can induce, particularly if it is 'handy' and imbued with the power of a 'dark lord'.
[ September 15, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]
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