That's the thing. It's really hard to say for sure what is the best piece because it is very subjective to each person offering their opinion. Over the years I've been collecting and participating on various forums I would say the votes would go with the RWOS SSW statue. You've also got pieces like The Balrog, Sam & Bill, etc that capture a lot of what people love within Middle-earth. You have newer pieces that have come out that could claim a top spot depending upon where you stand with things like the Sauron PF, Rivendell, Barad-dur, the Boromir statue from SS, Azog on Warg, etc. Maybe after Azog comes out we can do a poll and see what folks here think is the best piece up to that point. Of course you have the prospects of say a Smaug statue or new Balrog from Weta that could be game changers. I guess the good problem is there are so many great pieces.
It's tough because people prefer manufacturers, lines, characters, statues, figures, scale, busts, props, replicas...
Narrowing it down to scale, type and manufacturer is hard enough
Azog for example looks great but isn't 1:4 so zero interest from me other than hoping Sideshow does one.
Pound for pound I think there's more LOTR stuff out there than most other licenses so picking the "absolute" best is almost impossible.
And it all looks great, even the stuff I didn't get. AND there's still more coming too...
Let's see who attempts the first modern Smaug piece.
I've owned so many great LOTR pieces in the last 10+ years that I honestly don't think that I could pick just one. I think for a lot of collectors (I know I'm guilty of this) the best piece is the newest one - at least temporarily. No matter how great that six year old statue is, the day something new arrives, that's where my attention is. I think if I had a couple years of nothing new I'd be able to stand back and decide.
I have said in the past that the Escape Off The Road wall plaque is the piece that I plan on bringing to the nursing home someday, so maybe that's my pick for the best.
DROM is great, though if I count all my helms as a single piece I probably go with that. Took so long to get them all...
Weta BD is also nice, I'd like to see them do a MT at that level.
Cave Troll & Balrog... anything bronze. I'm going to have to shell out the $ one day a get a bronze piece.