Most witnesses don't know their own history and that is correct, most of us probably could agree that we didn't know anything really about wts before something brought us to research the matter. As for Russell, the second adventist movement had a great affect on his life and his meetup with Nelson Barbour rally made him look to dates as never before. I don't agree that he was into occult just as there is no proof that he was a mason. He had knowledge of masonary as they were quite popular at the time, the pyramid also was used to calculate or support the crazy dates that Barbour revealed to Russell as Charles was trying to support his theory. It's obvious that the pyramid had nothing to do with Christianity but Russell seem to have been convinced that the stone witnes in the bible was refering to the mommoth structure.
Since Russell was a businessman he wasn't stupid when it came to money. It does appear that the move for him to move all his assets into the Watch Tower publishing company was to keep the wealth away from his wife, this may not be true but it does look like it from reading his history. As he continued to do business through his "charitable" organization he did find himself in trouble when Brooklyn Eagle made fun of him for selling wheat that wasn't more than ordinary while claiming to produce 5x or 20x the yield. Russell sued the eagle for libel and lost. In court it was shown that not only any money that went into WT was same as the money going into Russell's bank account but it also showed that Russell had controlling interest in other companies. The scans from the Brooklyn Eagle I've posted here before and can be downloaded here. 1913 newsclips describe the court case and Oct 19, 1911 article shows the cartoon why Russell sued the Eagle.
As for Russell and JWs goes. He started a movement which was hijacked by Rutherford who appeared to be powerhungry and did everything possible to push all his opposers out of his ranks which he finally accomplished by calling his followers Jehovah's Witnesses who to this day think that it was Russell that started the religion and they still make fun of the Russellites which also have some whacky believes just as Russell did. There are several Russellites sects out there still and some groups that broke away from Russell which are even rarer yet which adhere to different beliefs yet.
If I remember correctly the 7th messanger title was applied upon him by Rutherford in the book The Finished Mystery which is believed to be written by Rutherford himself, as it's quite different and more crazy than other of Russell's books.
JWs can't prove there was a "true line" of christians from the first century onward as wts claims that is also why they never printed this line and this concept isn't thaught nor is it known by newer witnesses but mostly is still repeated by older ones. If I remember correctly, Barbara Anderson wrote once that wts tried to compile a list of christians through out the ages who believed certain basic teachings that wts teaches and they couldn't make out a continues line so that's why it wasn't printed in the Proclaimers (?) book. Speaking of Proclaimers history book, it's also a selective history and written in a manner that most witnesses wouldn't clue in on certain events. After all they don't even include 1799 date and paint over 1925 and Beth Sarim as innocent events.
As someone wrote before, anyone knowing the true history of the religion would never become a "JW".