It appears to me that fighting fires has been the hallmark of the org. throughout living memory.
The example that comes to mind: 1935, there is a maximum of 144,000 dubs at that point but a majority of them had lived and “gone to their reward”. Advertise x 3 is a success, soon the number will be over-subscribed. 52,000 already, by 1940 140,000 What to do? Ah ha! “Noo light, let’s invent the great multitude, that will sort it out.”
Now we have the pre-1935 converts most of who believe they will go to heaven. Well why wouldn’t they? Every other bible based religion thought so. They are the faithful and discreet slave distributing food at the proper time. I grew up with one or two in every nearby congregation. They mainly turned up for the memorial, never went any where near the preaching work and seemed to have a very poor grasp of what they were supposed to believe. Then we have the new lot, the OS who think they are going to own the world. They work hard believing every word they have been taught. They look up to this fictitious anointed master race who have now been demoted to being no different than any one else.
So, the generation fiasco is simply just the latest crisis averted by sudden miraculous inspiration. I am sure there are many more through the course of the last 100 years or so.