Yep, critical that Gollum doesn't get redeemed. Yes to the reasons above - there's certainly a positive moral message about the value of mercy. And the flipside to this is a negative moral lesson about the (Christian) nature of evil. Two key points on this:
No mortal being, no matter how virtuous, can overcome evil through their own virtue alone
For number 1: As OP says, Gollum and Frodo are such great foils for each other because one is the worst most depraved little fucker in existence, and the other is the epitome of virtue according to the moral framework of LOTR. But they are both equally incapable of resisting the Ring, in the end. Yes, Gollum succumbs much faster because he's a bad person who seized the Ring through violence, whereas Frodo, a good person who inherited the Ring reluctantly, is able to resist it far longer than anyone else in Middle-earth could have. Frodo's goodness and mercy matters - it gets him and Gollum up to the final brink - but it's not enough to take him to the end. Even he cannot throw the Ring into the fire, and crucially, this is not framed as a personal failing on his part. The point is, it doesn't matter how good he was; there's no counterfactual where he's able to destroy it because he was an even better person, nor is there some more virtuous being in Middle-earth who could have managed it. We are shown that while goodness can get you part of the way there, there is no amount of good you can be that will allow you to overthrow evil on your own. At the very end, evil will equalise us all, as it equalises Frodo and Gollum in Mount Doom.
(I don't think Tolkien intends this or anything in LOTR as straight allegory, but this is drawn from the idea of Original Sin. In Christian terms, not even the most virtuous person can be redeemed through their own virtue alone - only through Christ.)
For number 2: Nobody will ever be able to willingly destroy the Ring, so the only way it can be destroyed is as a result of its own workings. This is why Gollum and his ultimate lack of redemption are essential: Gollum, the most profoundly corrupted of the Ringbearers, is the mechanism through which the Ring undoes itself. The Ring's means of self-preservation is to be so irresistible that it causes the bearer to betray themselves - their loyalties, values, even their own interests. So, Gollum cannot help himself from following Frodo to Mount Doom, and at Mount Doom, it is likewise inevitable Gollum will betray his oath of fealty to Frodo and transgresses the terms of the curse. But both the oath and the curse are magical contracts enforced by the Ring itself.
Through the Ring's influence on Frodo, it sets up these binding magical contracts; through its influence on Gollum, it guarantees that Gollum will trigger the curse, and be in a position to bring the Ring down with it when he does. That 'Frodo Laid A Geas' post says it all.
(Another Christian idea - that Satan is allowed his schemes, evil is allowed to unfold, because it will ultimately drive itself to destruction as part of God's plan.)
But this is where I slightly disagree with OP - I don't think it would be an equally artistically effective choice to have Gollum redeemed. The point is that the Ring destroys itself through Gollum's damnation. It would diminish the impact of the ending if Gollum, for example, threw himself into the fire with the Ring as an act of heroic self-sacrifice; this would trivialise and sentimentalise the problem of evil the story is grappling with, reassure us that if we only believe enough/are good enough/love someone enough etc. then we can overcome the evil through acts of individual moral heroism. But this isn't how it works in real life. In real life, when we try to undo evil, we fail, over and over again. Individual effort and goodness matter, but are never enough. LOTR addresses this reality. We don't get left with the simple moral victory of so many of LOTR's more banal descendants: we end in mutual damnation, in tragedy, in failure. Thus the victory is all the more mysterious, incredible, and serious.
(My other minor quibble is on defining Frodo and Gollum's relationship as a friendship; even at its most cordial, it is never a relationship of equals. It's a hierarchical, feudal, magically-secured bond of mutual obligation between master and vassal, and this is very important to the way their tragic trajectory plays out).
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