I think Tolkien gets away with it because there really isn't one MC. It sort of centers on Frodo particularly in the beginning, but by the end even in the Frodo chapters, its more in Sam's POV. And the others all gain a voice as it goes on but still, yes, always, always the O is strong.
Do you read Dorohy Dunnett? She's hardly ever in the MC's head and many find her too hard to read, but I love it- the MCS are such enigmas and it makes for great discussion-and by the end you're just rooting for them and hating all the other characters who constantly misundertand/mistrust them, but many people can't get that far and dislike her books.
I haven't read any Dunnett, but I'm putting her on my TBR list! *s* Lately I've been on a faerie kick. Patricia A. McKillip. Melisa Marr. And I stumbled upon *be still my heart* Holly Black. I found myself so immersed and emotionally engaged in her stories that I never noticed style or the mechanics of how she writes. High praise from me! *s* I'm eagerly awaiting her latest, due out in May. She has multiple POV's throughout, but not within the same scene...but she just released an anthology of short stories The Poison Eaters and one vignette revisits the characters in her Tithe, Valiant, Ironside series. The POV does shift back and forth. Repeatedly. It reads clean though and it's very clear who's talking as it switches between the King of the Unseelie Court and a twenty something guy who are both suffering insecurities about their love lives. Suffering the same insecurities. *s* Which is fascinating since the guy it gay and the king is a faerie and both their thought processes and how they handle themselves are distinctly different, but driven by the same feelings. How does she manage to do that? No idea. *ggg* So I like reading a shifting POV, that gives me peeks into the different character's heads, but I don't enjoy a wavering POV at all. There the story feels muzzy and confusing and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's going on, till I'm eventually annoyed to the point I won't read it anymore.
susiej