Nice post, Fark. I've noticed this too. While in prison in 1918, Rutherford railed about destroying creature worship when he got out. Given his subsequent actions, it seems clear he really meant to get rid of the creature worship of CTR and foist it upon himself instead. And as you pointed out, for all his prison time determination, as soon as he got out he began to glorify CTR for a time even more than Russell had ever done! So much for that promise. Only later he began to undo almost every one of Russell's teachings, and putting himself in that place. Once again, he failed at his attempt to undo creature worship.
As for being freed from Babylon the Great, I once wrote a post that researched all the beliefs and customs belonging to Babylon the Great that the Society says they used to follow before 1919. The idea, as your mother absorbed, is that pre-1919 = enslavement to Babylon the Great, post-1919 = spiritual freedom.
In fact, the only thing that changed in 1919 was the release of the Society's officers from prison. For years afterward, JWs continued to do all the things that "indicated" they had been in bondage to Babylon the Great: birthdays, Christmas, lack of neutrality, etc. It was until almost a decade later that all those things were finally changed, as Rutherford began to systematically wipe out CTR's teachings.
So for much of the 1920s, during which time the Society was supposedly free from Babylon the Great, they continued to practice the very things they now teach were signs of their Babylonian bondage! For someone who supposedly freed the Society from these things, he sure took his sweet time. Maybe he was too disconcerted about Prohibition to notice.