Hi, Randy...
I think the difference is in a case like the GB members is that they get together and DEBATE the ethics of certain issues! They are not "captives of a concept" in the sense that they are just being carried along in a wave.
I definitely get this. In fact it isn't terribly different from when you and I were elders, is it? Weren't there situations in which we had to debate whether a person was or was not repentant? Elders would pray--and then discuss the most minute aspects of things that the person in question had said, done--or didn't say or do. Then we would judge this person--as if God's personal prophet. I was always of the mind that you gave the person the benefit of the doubt--unless it was perfectly obvious they weren't repentant. Now, of course, I detest the very idea that I was involved in such a thing. But at the time I thought I was doing my part in "God's Theocratic Arrangement."
If you read my above post, you know that I did not say anything about their "INNOCENCE of the issues." In fact I wrote that ultimately they are responsible. Just like I was responsible for things I may have done as an elder. Just like my mother and father would have been if they allowed me to die without a blood transfusion. To me, in order to assign evil status to them, I think you have to demonstrate that they didn't truly believe their debates, discussions, votes, etc. were part of God's arrangement.