I posted this on another thread and am pasting it here to start a new one because I would be interested in getting others' thoughts on it.
There has been a downward spiral in the quality of the written publications since the death of Fred Franz in December 1992. Whatever else can be said about Franz, the man did have some education and his writing was of good quality. Others in the Writing Department also had some skill and command of language that gave cogency to their work. But since Franz's death, a huge leadership vacuum has opened in the WTS. It certainly has not helped that men like Ted Jaracz and Gerrit Lösch assumed the reins of power and drove the organization in the direction of deeper ignorance.
But even before Franz died, there was a movement away from real scholarship and research. Some of that can be traced to the purge that led to the ouster of Raymond Franz, Ed Dunlap and others in 1980 who were not only free thinkers but quite intelligent. Barbara Anderson was also part of that group of workers at Bethel whose contributions were very important. Their departures were bad enough, but the situation was made worse by the organization's refusal to recruit and train replacements.
The WTS never in its darkest dreams imagined that the twenty-first century would see "this old system" still going strong. We were supposed to be well along in the first century of the Millennium by now and the Kingdom would take care of any needs for teachers, trainers, mentors, writers, etc. Because the organization failed to prepare for a future in this world, it now finds itself preparing to fail. It cannot meet the need for adequate reading and training materials let alone produce deep works on prophecy, exegesis and hermeneutics. Matters will only get worse as time goes on.
Quendi