TD, after reading your post I must say I agree completely. Overall I like the direction of this thread.
In the "old days" the congregation bookstudies didn't have specific numbers of paragraphs to cover and much was left up to the individual study conductor. In the "old days" the "friends" would discuss deep prophecies and in general felt superior to other christians because they had such meat provided to them for study.
I remember being in field service car groups and playing bible stump games. The one who could come up with some obscure fact which was usually based on some deep prophecy would win.
It seemed that there was a time when open discussion occurred about the doctrines and the understandings. Make no mistake, you did have to tow the line; outright disagreement wasn't acceptable.
Nowadays the witnesses seem to be slowly losing end times urgency. I know we've discussed it on the boards a million times, but it's true. The old timers feel the younger ones aren't spiritual enough to survive the persecution that they feel is sure to come. The young ones don't know the deep spiritual prophecies and truths because they aren't really discussed much. There is a real (to borrow a term used by someone earlier) bifurcation of the membership.
One possibility is that a new visionary will emerge and either reinvigorate the entire membership or cause a schism.
The more I watch my witness family members and their friends the more I see them seem tired and unenergetic. The average witness seems very much to just be going through the motions without giving much thought to anything except the end coming so they will be vindicated and not stricken with odd illnesses any longer.
Actually, that last sentence made a thought pop into my head. It seems we've discussed many times the odd illnesses that witnesses have. The witnesses of the 30s-70s weren't afflicted with so many maladies. I believe it is all part of the wearing out of the message, machinery and membership.