Also, dwarves being loud, drunken, boorish, and Scottish really, really annoys me. Tolkien’s dwarves are none of these things.
I'm not sure I would go quite that far. A constant quality we saw with the dwarves in the LotR books was a sense of hard-headed skepticism, like the following quotes:
-If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
--Thorin Oakenshield
-It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.
--Gimli
-I say neither yea nor nay. I must consider this message and what it means under its fair cloak.... The time of my thought is my own to spend.
--Dain
Tom Shippey argued that the language of the dwarves and Gimli provide a contrast to the elves being more of a realistic style. It exists as a middle ground between the high romance of the Elves and Numenor and the Edwardian gentlemen of the Hobbits.
That sort style is very hard to do for skilled authors, let alone in the limited linguistic medium of television. The drinking, boorishness, and general "Scottishness" of the dwarves does sort of serve to provide that contrast with the elves. The "actual" dwarves from the sagas like Andvari and Regin are too alien to viewers to serve as an inspiration, and the producers probably wisely decided to stay away from the Jewish vibes the dwarves give off.
Anyhow, I watched the first three episodes when I was at my parents over thankgiving. As high fantasy, solid 7/10. As Lord of the Rings, probably a 2/10. The armor though was particularly hideous.
In lore-terms, of what I saw that annoyed me the most was the idea that an elf can only return to Valinor if the High King lets them. The Ban was lifted after the War of Wrath, those who wanted to return to Valinor could. Those who didn't,
chose to stay in Middle Earth whether out of love for the land, a desire to rule the land, or both.