Could be wrong but if I remember right Knorr was the fellow that popularized personifying the organization as a mother. Isn't that one step away from Israelites worshipping Asherah as "YHWH's consort"
What I recall of brother Knorr was just as you say, self-aggrandisement. Watchtower before then was rather nameless but just as emphatic about the infallibility of “The Society”, but those were the days when you could turn up with a cigarette and barely get more than a remark. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was he who became the instigator of worship of the GB. Before that point, the goal for the unattached witness was to go to bethel and which was seen as the ultimate in service to Jehovah rather than the eye opener it is today. The aggrandisement of the GB seems pro-rata with its decline like an all consuming disease.
