One thing that I found fascinating about our exercise on Thursday was that a lot of the passages chosen by people as "nonessential" were not advancing the plot but they were, in my view, crucial to the quality of the story. For example the two passages we discussed about the ring, the one where Frodo shows Bilbo the ring and the other one where Frodo puts on the ring to try to avoid the black riders. When I first heard those passages my first thought was "These are nonessential? Really?" But as I thought about it more I realized that what we were talking about was the advancement of the plot, but the way I had been thinking about it was more about what you could remove without affecting the quality of the story too much.
These two passages I mentioned certainly would not be mentioned in a bare-bones plot outline, but at the same time without them you would not have the slow building understanding of the powers of the ring, and the sense of a dread hanging over everything that comes with it. Without this you could have a story with the same plot, but it would not be the same story. These touches of detail and foreshadowing are what distinguish a good plot from a good story.
I was thinking in a similar way for that class discussion. I suppose if you look at the story as mere plot, then there is an awful lot of stuff that does not need to be there. But you are right that those little moments add to the heart of the story, making the characters feel more alive and the world feel more real. I think that Tolkien put every detail in the books for a reason, and that even the "nonessential" plot points have a story to tell or a lesson to teach. I just think of the short part in the Two Towers with Sam cooking the coneys, and how now that is an iconic and humorous movie scene.
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