Interesting. So Brother Dunlap essentially, as Terry already pointed out, had this thing pegged 33 years ago. And now it's becoming official doctrine.
I will reiterate a post I made 12 days ago to a thread started by Cedars on this topic, and that is that this "new light" actually makes more sense. When I was a teenager, we had an old sister who partook and so was supposedly, back then, a member of the FDS Class. And yet I wondered how that could be the case when she (and thousands like her) never contributed anything in the way of direction or distribution of spirtual food.
So it's very interesting to find out that Ed Dunlap had that same view. And again, this new understanding makes more sense, even though it is being taken generally in ex-jw circles as a further consolidation of power by the GB. And perhaps indeed it is. Whatever the case, it's actually, in my view (and apparently in Mr. Dunlap's view as well) that this a better interpretation.
Of course, my main question now is: What took them so long?