"Maybe they made it shorter at some point? The description of the program sounds to me like the Society was being lied to by bodies of elders in various congregations, so they "trained" men to go into those congregations as spies for Watchtower, to get a different perspective of what was going on from whatever the congregation elders had been telling the Society."
Vintage. I know this to be true. It happened in our congregation when I still lived in the northwest of England. At one time I was in the same circuit as Lloyd and we shared the same circuit assembly hall in Northenden Manchester. Our congregation went through a particularly hard time and the branch office removed most of the elders, some were kept on, but they also eventually stepped down. The elders who were brought in were not very nice at all. The PO was particularly a nasty piece of work, I hear this PO was also good friends with Lloyd. His name was Tony Cain Hated this guy with a passion. Apparently, he/was a CO now, although I have heard he has had one are two nervous breakdowns. Maybe the burden of ruining so many people's lives is laying heavy on his indoctrinated mind.