Ultimately I think the teaching that they alone have the right to determine what the Bible means and then to exert "authority" over the members bears the greatest influence over the JWs. Without this "authority" they have nothing.
I must agree with this wholeheartedly. As we've expressed many times, they've taken the place of God himself by this teaching i.e. personification of God in the "FDS", read organisation. They've also supplanted the role of Jesus himself as our mediator with the FDS.
An onerous teaching and an odious one!
Cheers to you, Ozzie