The hero of "Lord of the Rings" is not Frodo Baggins. It's Sam.
Sam was a hero. But he was only one of them. Sam's strength came from serving Frodo. Sam couldn't do it on his own, and he couldn't be the ringbearer. The only reason that Sam could give the ring up was because he was giving it back to Frodo - otherwise it would have destroyed him, too. That's why he had to give it back - he couldn't handle it.
Frodo collapsed, yes - but Frodo was the only one to allow himself to be slowly destroyed in order to get the ring to Mt. Doom. No one else would make that sacrifice. We say that everyone else was consumed by the ring's power, but what does it mean? It means that everyone else felt unable to allow the ring to destroy them, rather than comply with it's demands. Frodo alone was able to look at the ring and refuse it while simultaneously paying the price of allowing himself to be slowly destroyed by it. That is a sacrifice no one else was willing to do - not even Sam.
Plus Frodo is a much cooler name then Samwise Gamgee... “Samwise lives!” Umm, no.
Two things are wrong with your thesis. One, Sam took the Ring because it was too great a burden to Frodo. Everyone else coveted the Ring for the power it gave them. But not Sam. He took it simply to relieve a friend of his load. So Sam knew the corrupting power of the Ring, but took it anyway.
“So what,” you say. “Many others knew the Ring corrupted but coveted it and would gladly have taken it.” True. But they would have taken it for their own ends (even if those ends were ostensibly good). Sam, the selfless servant, had no such designs.
The second flaw in your argument comes from the fact that Sam WILLINGLY gave the Ring back to Frodo — even when he knew what it would do to him. Sam knew that the battle Frodo was fighting was one he had to win on his own. Sam himself had no such struggle to overcome. He could as easily tossed the Ring into the river of fire as he threw away a potato peel. It meant nothing to him. He was incorruptible.
I agree thsat it is simplistic to say Sam is THE hero of LOTR; there are many, including the valiant Frodo. But none — not even Galadriel, Elrond, or Gandalf dared to bear the Ring for fear of its taint. Sam did and survived intact.