Yadda yadda 2: "Is the group so hopelessly homogenous, blindly loyal, and suffering from groupthink?"
You answered your question yadda. Also I seem to recall that Ray Franz described the Governing Body as tending to be unanimous in their votes.
I also recall that Ray stated that when some doctriinal matter or issue came along that he did not agree with he would abstain from voting which was within his rights as a member of the Governing Body to do. Then at that time a witchhunt began (due to the stress of their failed 1975 prophecy) throughout the JWs. A certain brother confronted Ray with a list of all the times he had abstained. It was downhill from there on. Ray was evicted from Bethel with a small sum of money and a trailer for him and his wife. He wasn't disfellowhipped but he was disgraced.
Having no work skills because of his life long devotion to Bethel he was lucky to have found a disasociated JW friend who gave him permission to park his trailer on some land he had and a job at his grocery store. Then one day Ray was seen having dinner with his friend. This gave the elders of his local congregation the excuse they needed to disfellowship Ray. Ray's sin being that he hung out with a disasociated person. And this rule, that disasociated people be treated exactly the same as disfellowshipped persons, was made after Ray had gone out to dinner with his friend/employer/landlord. It was in essence applied retroactively. Ray Franz decided to resign instead of going through a judicial committee.
Put in perspective, I think that if it had not been for the witchhunt Ray Franz would have stayed in the organization. He himself brought up in his book the case of an elderly man who was disfellowshipped for apostacy who had known all the way back to Rutherford that "Organization=God" in the JW mentality. Hence the question, why did he or anybody else stay in the JWs for so long knowing that the JWs were organization worshipping blasphemers? Ray himself admitted that he was not proud of the fact that he lasted that long in the organization. But the fact that he had abstained from voting in matters he did not agree with-which is a Governing Body privilege-at least indicates a modest amount of integrity and character, as georgiegirl put it.
As for the rest of the Governing Body they are unlikely to have an ounce of it. They have been at Bethel almost all of their adult life and are too used to it. Like the JWs say "Where are you going to go?"
villabolo