A lot of great points.
Dunedain, something came to mind when reading your comment. Holidays are a time for everyone to get together and celebrate life, family and friends. If you take away holidays, JW's are left with occasions such as the conventions to look forward to, further grouping them up into the cult and linking them to one another. The conventions are their holiday.
I see the picking and choosing taking place. If it benefits the leaders/who ever's behind them and their agenda, then they make excuses. If it doesn't benefit them, there is no allowance. The bottom members are disfellowshipped and destroyed.
What I'm having a hard time understanding is if the leaders truly believe, why are they begging for such "worldly" things in order to expand "God's will"? I'm just your regular person with more of an agnostic viewpoint. However, if I am passionately against something and classify it as part of an evil association, there's no way I'd want any ties to it in any form.