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Can I just say, as a lifelong devotee of Frank Herbert, and a scholar of JRR Tolkein, that it really doesn't sound like their work is for you. It sounds to me like you want a straight-to-the-point, whip-out-the-swords "popcorn" adventure series, without too much nuance and complexity put into the background, history, and languages of the author's universe. Tolkein and Herbert are nothing but nuance and complexity, with comparatively little straight-to-the-point, whip-out-the-swords adventuring.
You might like Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. He is very big on character and plot development, and paints vigorously with a wide brush: delicate nuance is not his style-- he likes direct action.
Evangeline Walters' "Mabinogion" trilogy, which represent loose adaptations of sections of classic Welsh myth in the form of fantasy novels, is something else you might enjoy.
George RR Martin is arguably the best ever at direct action and rapid plot development, while still delivering interesting characters in an interesting world. Only problem is that you may find yourself in the same boat as so many of the rest of us: at the end of the series, waiting for a next book that is already three years overdue....
You also might like the three trilogies by Robin Hobb, the "Farseer" "Liveship" and "Golden Fool" trilogies. She had a more recent one, the unrelated "Forest Mage" series, which was not half as good.
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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
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