: I must say I'm a bit confused.

Hmmm, I actually get the impression that Tolkien himself wasn't sure of the power of the Rings, or at least modified this in the course of time. In The Hobbit, the One Ring appears to give only the power of invisibility. It probably has other powers, but no clue as to what these are is given. In LotR, however, the aspects of greater awareness/ sharpened senses, tendency to greed and evil, desire to keep posession and ability to see into the wraith world are added. These effects are obviously in line with Sauron's ultimate desire to enslave the ring bearers. However, it is not clear why the bearer should become invisible. Is this just a bait to make people use the Rings in the first place? If it did not affect the dwarves, why did they accept the rings. If it did, why didn't they use this feature to greater effect in their war against Sauron? Also, why did Gollum not become permanently invisible? What did Sauron do with he dwarven rings he captured? Did he give them to anyone else? What did he do with the Nazgul rings? He could have used these to make a second set of Nazgul?
Questions, questions, questions. I suppose we can only speculate and will never know for sure, or does anybody know?