Not to start some picky arguement... but to me 'Classic Fantasy' is fairy tales... not Tolkien...
Less tales of large scale warfare and evil... more small scale personal stuff. Less concern about the complexities of believable non-human races... no orcs or hobbits or historian elves...
If someone wanted to start something based on all the Grimm's tales and the stuff from Lang's Fairy books I'd be really happy with that... more folklore based... stuff about the Black Forest and Baba Yaga and lost princesses...
Kind of like that Firefly's game Faery's Tale:
http://www.firefly-games.com/catalog...064286378e7320
I'd love to play something like that.
I know after seeing Terry Gilliam's Brother's Grimm movie I wanted to do up a setting that had the Napoleonic wars as a backdrop... but focused on the fluttering vestiges of the old world that still lingered in the darker corners... alchemists in Prague... vampires in Romania... goblins in the woodwork.