CG,
With all due respect, I have to say you are not very familiar with JWs and their policies, written or unwritten. When you compared JWs to Methodists, that's when the alarm buzzer shrieked the loudest.
Yes, JWs compare well with Muslims and other strict sects, but not with religions where the members don't have to face a committee nearly every time their conduct or speech comes under suspicion by someone else in the group. Methodists, Presbyterians, and most other Protestants and even Catholics don't live in a spy system such as exists among JWs. And that spy system exists in every single one of their congregations, regardless of Amac's blindness to it or, shall I say, his defense of it.
Time and again I witnessed innocent women and also men being abused verbally by COs and elders, including elders at Bethel, and they simply had to accept it. When someone higher up in the JW hierarchy gives what they classify as "scriptural counsel," but what they really view as infallible pontifical pronouncements from God himself, the expectation is that the receiver should accept it. Often the basis of the "counsel" is simply a personality clash between the giver and the receiver. Any resistance is viewed by the majority as lack of subordination and even rebellion. JWs often have to swallow any pride they have with the realization that there is no one who will defend them against unjust charges within the organization. Several times I saw as many as three or four persons restricted for a lengthy period of time simply because they dared to contradict an off-hand judgment against a fellow JW who they knew with certainty was completely innocent and was being wrongly accused. The only remedy ever offered for injustice by the elders and sometimes by husbands is: "Just wait on Jehovah." In the meantime, as the innocent person waits year after year "on Jehovah," the bossy elder or husband receives several promotions or positions of advancement within the organization.
I was a Methodist at one time in my life. I was also a Presbyterian. Then JWs came along and persuaded my parents that those churches were of the Devil. These days I enjoy association with Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and other Protestants. Perhaps only if you've been a JW can you appreciate the extreme difference in atmosphere among other churches compared with being among JWs.