[A_Brandybuck]

You are not so alone. ;-)

I read the Hobbit after reading Lord of the Rings and I could not get into it. The way of writing does not fascinate me in the way Lord of the Rings did.
But after having read the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, I started to read again and saw the Hobbit in another light. It wasn't still another story with relations to Lord of the Rings. No, it was a part of the world, which have discovered while reading the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
It fascinates me at once, but the style of wrinting was not the reason.
The reason was, that there are so many new details of the world and my view has changed from the "delight-of-reading"-view to the "give-me-more-knowledge-over-the-world"-view.
I didn't pay attention to the picture of the characters I saw in the Hobbit. The great-context was important.

The Hobbit is today (for me) important to understand Tolkien's process of writing, to look into the beginning of his writings (also when it is not the very first beginning). It has more similarity with the Book of Lost Tales in the style of writing. You can catch a glimpse of the world, how Tolkien has designed it before writing Lord of the Rings, which has diorganize the world totally.
Because of Lord of the Rings and so many questions concerning the mythology after the outcoming of the "Triology" , Tolkien had to made a new concept.

Finally, the Hobbit stands by me "in the same row" as the Book of Lost Tales and all the other books of the beginning.