well, i do agree with your statement about the difference between the 1992 me and present you. facts (or excuse) back then were the lack of knowledge, knowhows, behaviours of churches back then (men and women sat on different side of the church, no spaghetti string blouse and short skirts for ladies), getting our hands on info like these are only meant for the privileges. i remembered those days only in the of 1997 i setup the very first 64k leased line for my company's internet and even then, availability of information were scare and few. Google? ebay? amazon? none of them were even started yet. the pastors had absolute dominance over the congregation's mind and will..... anything not in order, it is "you disobey god!"... dogma is dogma, thou shall not question thy pastors.
i didnt have the luxury of information comparison back end unlike the present day of what we can get at the snap of a finger. do you think the modern pastors are what they used to be like 20 years ago? no way! nowaday, pastors are so eloquent and nice.
see? you did exercise logic and reasoning when it comes to the portion of "good works". well, if your pastor insist on the other view, why stance will you take? will you succumb to them or will you rebel? i came from the old evangelical church where the pastors had you by the balls. and i say, enough is enough; enough of the talking snake, enough of the flooded world, enough of parting or red sea, enough of 10 plagues, enough of the supernatural stuffs, enough of the genocide/rape/torture/burn and other cruel acts of god in the OT. and the atrocities that were committed in the name of religions; crusade, inquisition, witch burning, forced conversion, apotasy, dogmatic control over every bits and piece of everyone's lifes, not to mention greed (like CHC/NCC), sheer dominance, surrender of your critical thinking skills/your mind, etc.... the list go on and on...
the monotheistic religion of jew was found by abraham, and if you compare that with joseph smith, both are religious founder, why give such difference in reverence?
another thing, did god has a wife called Asherah?
http://news.discovery.com/history/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.html
see? how the powerful people in the past can manipulated the scriptures and shaped what the future generation would see.
if you can oversee this and continue on with the NT, by all means go ahead.
it is like strapping all the fairy tales together, from snow white, to moby dick, and to alice in the wonderland, all 66 of them and then canonized as the codex of the country's Parliamentary laws.