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But how different are the two? The winning of the Grail in the legends doesn't deny the Second Coming of Christ - in a sense it 'foreshadows' it. The Second Coming cannot be brought about by man, but man is on a spiritual quest, symbolised by the Quest for the Grail - the two are not mutually exclusive.
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I both agree and disagree with you here. The peoples of M-E, in a sense, [just like those in the grail legends] have no control over when such things happen [things being the returning of the Silmaril/second coming], but in grail lore, there was a greater connection to the divine. The ring quest is fundamentally one of destruction, they are fighting against Sauron. The grail quest was simply finding a lost artifact [Yes, I realise this can be argued, it had to be "rescued" in a sense], and the outcome of which had no real bearing on when the second coming *would* come, nor how. The only real plus was for those involved, it was a spiritual cleansing. The ring quest, on the other hand, was an instance of prolonging the world of men. The Simarils would be returned no matter what, but it the Valar would not interfere in M-E, and men could go "extinct" in a fashion. The ring quest parallels the grail quest in that both are activities forshadowing a later "second coming" [both of the trees and Christ]], but the ring quest also a direct connection to whether Men would go on, as there is no undying land for Men. Had the grail not been found, Christ would still come, and the world of men would still be here [although, possibly more wicked?].