Is it better than WoW?
I'm still not over the idea of playing a LOTR game without the fuckin music. I know I know, EA has that license. 
Who the heck cares about music in an MMO in the first place? After ten hours of playing you'll be sick of ANYTHING.
I wouldn't say it's better than WoW, on the whole, but it does do some things better. The writing in LOTRO, for quests and story, is
very Tolkien-esque, and you can tell a shitload of work went into it. Similarly, the game world is very true to the books, too (the other night, I found the bog from the Hobbit where Gandalf turned the trolls to stone - that was a fucking cool moment). LOTRO has better visuals, technically, although it can't meet Blizzard's art all the time (and although the game is not based off the movie license, a lot of the designs are bordering on near-movie territory). Gameplay-wise, the Fellowship system (which takes some cues from FF11), adds more to play than the party system in WoW. There are special team moves, and even moreso than WoW, the classes complement each other in battle very well. At the same time, the game is pretty soloable, although I doubt you could solo the epic questlines until you are quite a few levels above the recs.
Other improvements - the title and deeds systems are very nice. Ever find a monster that's easy to grind, so you do it for like 2 hours? Here, if you spend like 2 hours grinding slugs, you get a title like "the Slug Squasher" that's appended to the name that floats above your head, viewable by all other players. Once you acquire more than one of these titles, you can pick what your visible title is. I am "the Undefeatable," a title I got by not dying once in the first 10 levels of the game.
Somewhat similarly, there are also deeds. You usually get these for doing something really special, or completing enough quests in a single zone. These also come with stat bonuses. I got one for finishing most of the main quests in the Shire, and another for finding the rarest flowers in the Old Forest. There's another one for destroying the living trees in the Old Forest, but that's a toughie. They be tough. Unlike titles, you can have more than one deed equipped at a time, although there are limits.
As you level, you also acquire destiny points. These points can be used on special (but still temporary) buffs (like increased experience, or increased chance of fancy drops--things above and beyond normal buffs).
Minuses from WoW, well, WoW crushes it in terms of content. LOTRO is by no means a small game, but in comparison to WoW it sometimes feels like it. Same goes for PVP right now, and I have no idea if they even plan on adding real PVP (it really doesn't fit within the confines of the Middle Earth universe, unless they added bad guy races). Instead of PvP you can take control of monsters and duke it out with other players' monsters in a special zone. It's neat, but it's no substitute for real PVP. The PVP and content things are the only two major problems that aren't quick fixable. There will be regular content upgrades (one this month, actually), but Blizzard is so far ahead in the content race. Although the LOTRO launch has easily been the smoothest MMO launch I have ever seen, there are still some stability problems in Vista, too, but I'm sure that's temporary.
Worth mentioning that as for professions, tailoring mining, and the rest, LOTRO holds its own. I think it actually improves on the WoW formula because recipes and mining and chopping nodes are more common, so it feels like you are actually using your secondary skills more.
Overall, I like the game a ton. I really hope Turbine can keep the content flowing as fast as I keep playing.
