It took a long time for me to 'leave' and then technicaly, I'm still 'in'. One of the things that troubled me was the fact that I knew several really intelligent brothers who were close to the brass. For a long time I thought: If there is something really wrong here, these guys would know it. In the end that reasoning helped me to leave. I reasoned that perhaps others were tempted to leave but that my presence there would prompt the same reasoning in their minds.
As for the many elders who 'know better' I cannot answer for them. But here is an interesting quote that you may or may not see fit to apply to the above mentioned situation:
"It is only under the existing regime that as governor, prosecutor, senator, members of the various councils, they can receive their several thousands of rubles a year, without which they and their families would at once sink into ruin, since if it were not for the position they occupy they would never by their own abilities, industry, or acquirements get a thousandth part of their salaries. ... that the higher and the more exceptional their position, the more necessary it is for them to believe that the existing order is the only possible order of things
But a king or an emperor, who receives millions for his post, and knows that there are thousands of people round him who would like to dethrone him and take his place, who knows that he will never receive such a revenue or so much honor in any other position, who knows, in most cases through his more or less despotic rule, that if he were dethroned he would have to answer for all his abuse of power - he cannot but believe in the necessity and even sacredness of the existing order. The higher and the more profitable a man's position, the more unstable it becomes, and the more terrible and dangerous a fall from it for him, the more firmly the man believes in the existing order, and therefore with the more ease of conscience can such a man perpetrate cruel and wicked acts, as though they were not in his own interest, but for the maintenance of that order." Tolstoy