Minimus:
You are absolutely right about everything in your post.
It was my observation that those "born in" kind of looked down on others who "came in" as adults. They try to hide this but it is a dirty secret among them. In my congregation, there was one particular male who was a worse gossip than many of the women. He felt it was his god-given right to talk about everybody else because his family was one of the first or older groups there. What a two-faced hypocrite! Anybody who came in new he secretly gave them the "low-down" on everybody who was there. Having been there for so long he knew much about many people and he even repeated things he shouldn't have. Part of the problem is that his mother was a busy-body and she may have given him a false sense of superiority.
But they say what goes around comes around and he got his comeuppance years later over something and he ended up going elsewhere because he felt he was not viewed favorably anymore.
LHG