I know the change in the 1935 teaching makes this a moot point...
but...
I always wondered about the "replacement" theory. Whenever the number went up it was explained that some fell away, thus replacements were added changing the number.
Which make no sense at all. If you have, say, 7,543 members of the anointed and during the course of the year three of them get DFd, they have to be replaced. So you add three new members. But the number shouldn't fluctuate. 7543 minus three plus three is still 7543. Then taking the number of those that die off, the number goes down.
The only way it can go up is if one or more that have already received his/her heavenly reward turns bad and has to be replaced. Even that scenerio raises questions because as often as the number went up, that would mean that quite a few of these "faithful stewards" were turning out to be not so faithful. Makes you wonder if they got up there and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be and started to beg off from hanging out with Joe Hober and Jebus