You probably are in the minority, but I think there ought to be a way of accommodating both preferences. I can get pretty extreme about avoiding spoilers myself. Like I'm annoyed that I accidentally read several Harry Potter spoilers this month, even though I haven't even bothered to read more than the first two books yet. It's the principle of the thing, and the possibility that I might get around to reading the rest of them someday. And I get annoyed whenever anybody says ANYTHING about Lost (other than "It's really good") because I'm waiting for the DVD.

And I'll tell you a secret: sometimes I'm kind of glad that I didn't read LOTR until after the first movie came out, because Gandalf's fall at Khazad Dum was a complete surprise to me, and that helped make it one of the most emotional moments I'd had in a movie theater in years. Shocking and horrible, but in a good way, you know?