The doctrine of a diminishing annointed remnant has always made me suspicious, and is one of the first things that got me to having doubts. To me, seeing how those numbers have jumped around for the past 70 years or so (and how they go up as often as not) proves one of two things:
1. Jehovah is a very poor judge of character and makes a lot of stupid selections that he has to replace.
-or-
2. The whole thing is a big crock.
I'd go with #2.
David