I have only just read the article, so I got to read the response, and the new title and introduction, which I think are both very good.
I agree with the response in that Tolkein didn't ruin fantasy for me, but I was a mere 12 when I read The Hobbit, LotR came much later, it did make me more willing to give that kind of "grown up" book a try. My dad was an avid Sci-fi/fantasy reader, and more than willing to cultivate this love he had for books in me. I still loved a good "reality/historical" novel, Gone with the Wind still being one of my favorites, but the fantasy genre took a bookish, not very popular girl to a realm of dragons, wizards and magic.
I have been very lucky in the fantasy that I chose, Anne McCaffery, Melanie Rawn, Tolkein (of course), Alice Borchardt (who is a bit more historical, but has a bit of magic in her books as well), and Brandon Sanderson (naturally, but a recent addition). All of these authors has something different to do with the magic systems, races, environments, and tone, and I love them all for those reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Dragonlance books, and own most of them, but they are, to me, a more "traditional" type of fantasy. A magic system that is easy to grasp for the reader and races that are known to us, through Tolkein, before we ever open one of their books. This did not turn me off of these books, it made me more eager to seek them out, they were familiar to me. I love Ursula K. LeGuin's EarthSea,but I picked that up on a whim, and if I hadn't been in a second hand store at the time, I probably would not have and I would have missed out on fantastic journey, because it was a totally different fantasy than I had been reading at the time.
I may be an anomaly among fantasy readers, but I fear change in some ways, and welcome it in others. I love the originality that some authors have, EUOL being one of them, but I also love the Tolkein-esque writers for the familiarity, kind of like a comfy pair of shoes, that they allow me to have, even with a new author.