Just like you, the morality of the Armageddon doctrine finaly got through to me. I used to rationalise, like many dubs still do, that "God must know what he is doing" and that it says only the " really wicked" are to die. This did not stop the WT from printing stuff that said that only baptized dedicated active dubs would avoid being incinerated and have their carcases left to feed the vultures .
Every so often it got to me, and I would smother my doubts by personal study. Then something happened, and I came to realise for sure that good, honesty and rightmindednes [made up word] does exist in the world outside, along with all the bad things too.
I was wrestling with the contradiction of a loving God who was planning to slaughter the ignorant and innocent. Then it hit me. IT IS JUST NOT TRUE!, that phrase I repeated over and over, out loud. None of it, the whole thing - it is just not true ..
Some truths are just evident, and from that day onward, I have never doubted that statement.
{BTW, What was the big change in 1954, of which you speak?}