aymodeler in your OP you strike me as one who has already given up. And you're encouraging others to do the same. All I can say is if you want to bow out, that's your business. Just don't get in the way of those who aren't ready yet.

IMHO the AMA bashing was not originally intended as such. It was in fact meant to be a wake up call for the membership as to the direction the AMA was heading. I contend it continues to be intended as a wake up call. However it seems the vast majority of the membership simply does not care. And of those who claim to care, it would seem they think defending the status quo is more important than fixing serious problems.

It became bashing, again IMHO because the supporters of the "AMA business as usual" labeled it as bashing in their attempts to drown out the facts. And they flooded the forums with accusations, name calling, mis-quotes (why?), out right lies, moderator complaints, etc. In truth this "bashing" provided considerable factual data and evidence to support the contentions of those sounding the alarm. Evidence and facts, something I don't recall the opposition ever doing.

One only needs to look back into old issues of the AMA magazine, Feb 2019 issue of The Hill, video reports by AMA EC and others to realize, the AMA has attempted several ploys to:
1. Pull the MR Drone crowd into the AMA fold.
2. Force all recreational flyers to join the AMA to be legal.
3. Encourage violations of the law (Fly as you normally would, i.e. >400').
4. Dispense false information even after it was shown to be false. IOW, outright Lie.
5. And the list goes on............

I agree the AMA is finished. But that doesn't mean we should abandon them. If changes can be implemented then it would be far easier to start new with the existing AMA than it would be to start over from scratch. But that would make a number of people in Muncie quite unhappy. And I suspect that is the crux of the whole matter.