Bob, guys in our age bracket learn from we've seen happen in real life. I've seen a lot of individual freedom that we used to take for granted turned over to big brother little by little. I think it's only natural for the people who work for large organizations to want as much control as they can muster, it's for their own job security, and makes their job easier instead of having every little thing decided by vote or by commitee.
I've suggested before that for a 1/2 price membership they could have been granted 1/2 a vote, which would seem to be more fair.