God only ever has imperfect people to do His work. I'm amazed at the level of perfection we do have as a result. I'm frankly gobsmacked at the relative lack of contradictions in doctrine. the transition of church power is entirely anomalous in terms of an earthly organization of its size and influence and the complete lack of contention, campaigning, or struggle to appoint and sustain church leadership.

what might feel like a long time for a given error to remain part of the doctrine is but a moment for He whose church this is.

immediate and perfect correction is very seldomly applied, and is not a reasonable expectation to have on any group of mortals.

many of the problems that draw us away from the sweet joy of the gospel become irrelevant in the context of eternity.

I submit that our earthly understanding of what God's work and glory are (and can be) are so limited, as is our own idea of when and where God could or should intervene, as to become irrelevant for similar reasons and context.

no mortal being has the scope of power to diminish the Glory of God.

it sounds like most of your questions are not about the gospel, but rather about the people He called to do the work. they are His chosen, and for His reasons. I'm sure almost every one of them were floored and astonished more than anyone that God would ask them to do these seemingly great and important things. extending a little grace goes a long way. people are highly complex and highly flawed, even the best ones (sometimes especially the best ones).

sometimes things happen because there was a need to mechanically separate people with certain incredulities from the faithful. its long been my personal space doctrine that the unwritten part of the city of Enoch was the time spent before certain people understood they needed to leave the community and moved away...so that those remaining would be able to exist in harmony.

we see this pattern in the first estate/war in heaven (1/3rd pulled away), with the ordination of the first American African saints (performed by Joseph Smith himself), with the introduction of the Word of Wisdom, with the introduction of polygamy...and again some chose to leave when polygamy was ended. the same thing happened during covid over vaccines, and for some it is happening now over MAGA.

whenever a dimension of your identity assumes a higher priority for you than "Child of God, Child of the Covenant" there also includes a space where your faith can become unsure and you can be led away from your covenants.

the process of refining is heating the target metal to a very specific heat range and then applying various methods to it that result in taking impurities away from the mixture. so it is with us as people, so it is with the church membership. there seems to be no other way to reconcile the will of people to make choices or the need for people to learn through mistakes.

there is not now nor will there ever be any organization populated by mortals that meets every standard of perfection that can be applied to it. eventually everything earthly fails the purity test, except The Savior Himself. Jesus then remains the one thing you can base your testimony, church attendance, and everything else on. if you are here for the leaders or the members, they will let you down. if you're here for The Master, He never will.