I think it goes to show that the public edition of the WT, and to a lesser extent the Awake magazine are not necessarily for the public, as much as both are for the JWs themselves, or those associated with JWs. The public magazines and other literature serve a couple purposes, one of which is to provide the JWs with something to occupy their time with by peddling it to the public. The other reason is to maintain indoctrination of JWs. Even that article from a couple months back with the WT reaffirming it's stance of 607 BC being the date of Jerusalem getting sacked by Babylon, that wasn't for the public as the public by and large is not interested about when that event took place. Who does care about when that even occurred, is people like you and me on this message board, and also the JWs who are not entirely satisfied with what's on the CD Rom, which I'm under the impression those types of JWs are increasing in numbers due to the Internet.
A lot of it goes back to what Ray Franz stated about people who need someone to tell them what to believe. The freedom of analyzing situations such as religious beliefs is not appealing to everyone, particulary the mentally lazy, and even more so the underclass and uneducated. The WT fills that void by publishing literature designed to tell someone what to believe. The publishers and even more so their audience, are not interested in debate or research. The publishers wishes to prepare and deliver the platter, and the audience simply wants to lap it up without the need for Rolaids, Tums, or Prilosec afterwards. Just a simple "this is how it is" will suffice, and that satisfies both parties.
Anybody with an education, or even without an education yet capable of critical thought and reasoning isn't gonna fall for the malarkey the WT is tossing out there. The WT knows this all too well, which is why they continue to hold onto the Service Meeting despite it's inablity to assist anyone in attendance with making converts, especially in the West. The Service Meeting's intent is to impress the audience of JWs to read the magazines, be prepared to offer the literature, don't forget to pick up your literature, your calender, your Yearbook, your Daily Text, etc. All of this is an exercise in doctrination under the false guise of preparing to offer life-saving literature to the general public.
