[stefantheard]

You should take a look at Rokas Leo's journey on youtube. I feel his journey is identical to what any open minded aikidoka will go down eventually. He trained for 13 years before beginning his journey and only recently got to the tail end and made a few important distinctions about why he will keep training aikido and how his teaching techniques will change, similar to a lot of the stuff you have echoed here.

edit: with some exceptions, he no longer believes aikido can help with self defense in any form (including against untrained attackers) at this point but does believe it has great benefits for other reasons.