The One Ring had long been forgotten in Middle-Earth when Bilbo found it, and why should not the Elven rings have forgotten some of it too? All the Rings lost some of it powers due to time and it is not unlikely that this includes their "relationship" with eachother. When Sauron had the ring, he most certainly pushed it to extreme levels and constantly pushed more and more energy in to it, so that he could always use it the way he wanted. The Ring's role is clearly reflecting Tolkien's almost hatred for new technology and industry, and since both technolodgy and industry depends on always updtating it self with new things, why not the Ring to? As said before, there is a clear difference in just using the ring and being Sauron and trying to control the world with it. It's like... uhhmmm, me and Microsoft: I use my computer and so does Microsoft, but since Microsoft is always updating their software and bracking the former limits, they get written about in the papers and I don't.
When then Sauron lost his ring, nobody continued to expand it's powers, and it therefore became nearly invisible and most probably lost much of it's powers.
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The markings wich first were as clear as day, is now a secret that only fire can prove
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I believe it was once written. That is a sign of the Ring losing some of it's powers because it was not united with it's master.
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They are one, the ring and it's dark lord...
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None of you probably understood anything of that anyway, so I'm not going to explain further. Did'nt make any sence, did it?