I sincerely hope he posts more on the Forum though I'm unsure if there can be a
real understanding between those who consider meditation to be an important part
of their ongoing lives and those who dismiss it as unnecessary or even possibly damaging.
I've taken the liberty of commenting on some parts of your post.

Core to Hinduism is the surrender, let me repeat that word - the surrender – of one’s life to a guru.

Only a minority of Hindus have a guru (or 2) and for many of them it requires little or no commitment. The core of Hinduism is paying priests to perform rituals and sacrifices.

Very important in understanding what I shared on this forum was
the experience
I had.  First, I meditated two to four hours a day for more than a
decade. etc etc arti, darshan, pranam, etc holy breath, charanamrit,
lotus feet, etc

Didn't we all? Do you understand that pretty well everyone who has ever been involved in this Forum
were premies? Some of them might have known you and even thought you were in your mind. (joke)

There was this 12 year old kid holding the rapt attention of a million
people. What the hell was that?

It's not unusual. Rawat was a minor Indian guru. There was an awful
lot of very poor Indians and there wasn't a lot of entertainment in
Bihar back in 1971
and this was the peak of Rawat's success in India. He was being touted
as the next big boy guru thing. There was a buzz but it was all downhill from
there.

I don’t know if that joy came from my devout practice of a religion, any
religion, or if it was from his grace.  I have to tell you, for a long
time I not only believed, but I knew it was by his grace.

"… we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!"
No matter how fervently you believed or how amazing you thought everything was you did not "know"
your happiness was caused by Rawat's "grace." Knowing something and believing it are different.
This doesn't require a deep epistemological debate, it's just laughable to think Rawat's 'grace' caused anything.

But the point I want to make is that I had an - I don’t know what words to put
on it - extraordinary, overflowing with love, an unquestionable connection to
the meaning of my life. It was an amazing experience.

See above. Your enjoyment of your years as a premie in no way validates
your belief that you had "an unquestionable connection to the meaning of my life"
which as Prem Rawat would have pointed out is just a concept - he said everything
that wasn't adoration of him was a concept but in this case I agree. You enjoyed yourself - fine.
You had intense feelings of love - fine. It was amazing compared to your previous life experience - fine.

Did I think that buying pot for my 13 year old guru was an odious act?

Odious is going too far. Ill-considered - yes. Illegal - yes.
Incomprehensible - yes.
Rawat said many times that practising Knowledge created an experience
far superior to marijuana and LSD.
Virtually every premie I ever heard give satsang in the early years said
the same based on their own personal experience.
Rennie Davis made it a central point of his preaching. Sounds like you
agreed as I've never heard even the most devout stoner talk
about dope like you talk about DLM in the 1970s. Getting stoned or going
to satsang? Did you have to think about it?
It makes sense when you realise that Rawat's life was based on all those
things you sneer at in your posts (money, power, fourth TV to put in
the bathroom)
and he wasn't enjoying the ride like premies were. No wonder he wanted to get out of it.

But I was truly shocked at the hurtful words I saw. It did truly anger me
that some would express what seemed to me to be venomous language,
that could be hurtful to others, especially since, to the best I
could see, the comments were predicated on opinions of what happened
or still happens, not necessarily what was actually happening.

It is normal for an exchange of ideas and comment to include criticism
between participants. I quoted your statements about pimping and drug
dealing for Rawat and questioned the exact details. Venomous?

And no doubt, to my retrospective chagrin, I was the vehicle for him to
create much suffering in people's lives.

13, Manincar and Swimming Free questioned the apparent lack of regret or
shame about your activities that you freely confessed created much
suffering in others' lives. Maybe they read 'chagrin'
as irritation rather than humiliation, there's a wide range of
meaning in that word.