You are right of course.
All I can tell you is my personal experience. I did it. I was RC pre-dub and the church is still a major part of the few positive childhood memories I have. Yet I am atheist. Why did I re-join?
1. I enjoy the cultural and traditional aspects. Mass is relaxing--it's a meditation time for me. I like Easter time. I like to daydream, "Wouldn't it be so awesome if this fairy tale was true? Just imagine!" I feel a childlike sense of wonder.
Profane (secular), routine, daily life, the conduct of instrumental activities at work and carrying out household chores, tend to weaken shared commitments to shared beliefs and social bonds, and enhance centrifugal individualism. For societies to survive [these] centrifugal, individualistic tendencies, they must continuously "recreate" themselves, by shoring up commitments to one shared ("common") set of beliefs and practices.
(b) Rituals provide one major mechanism for the recreation of society, one in which the members of a society worship shared objects and in which they share experiences that help form and sustain deep emotional bonds among the members.
(c) The specifics of the rituals, and the objects that are being worshiped or celebrated in these rituals, be they colored stones or woodcuts or practically anything else, have no intrinsic value or meaning. It is the society that imbues these objects with significance, and, thus endowed, they become the cornerstones of the integrative rituals built around them.
From this viewpoint, religious services during weekends serve to reinforce the commitments that have been diluted during weekdays. Holidays, in this context, are seen as supra-weekends, as especially strong boosters of commitments and bonds. [source]
2. It has helped me in my career and social relationships. (Should it? Of course not. But it does. Just ask most of our presidents.)
3. I was made to renounce my RCism before the dubs dunked me. I was rude to the church over it, and I was wrong. Amends were owed. It was a good exercise for me to heal. I completed RCIA professing to be an atheist who believed in birth control and was having premarital sex. They accepted this with no problem.
4. I felt, while the RCs have a reprehensible history, it was somewhat mitigated by the fact that it was not a dangerous mind control cult nor did they claim to be the only path to salvation (so said a previous pope). It was also in the remote past. The local churches here were not involved in the molestation scandal and priests were openly critical of the church at weekly Mass for years. Does this excuse everything? Of course not.
5. More on #1 and #3. I missed out on every normal rite of passage a child goes through in my locale. I felt terribly uncomfortable at funerals, weddings, confirmations, etc. that I was invited to attend in the church. It was embarrassing to not know how to do the rituals. I decided to get past the fear and find a way to fit in a little more.
6. I decided to give religion a chance. I wanted to believe there is a floaty sunny place where all good people fly around playing harps and never die. I figured I'd approach it with my open mind, like any good skeptic. Ultimately I was not able to form a belief due to total lack of evidence, but it's not for being pig headed, miffed, or anything like that. It's only an evidence issue. The only way I can say that today is because I did what I did.