Yes, I agree that this similarity between adherents of different groups and teachers exists.

What I believe to be happening is that people are having an experience of love, based on the worship of a perceived Ideal One, and through an openness of communication between one another (think of the best of premie community days).

Hearts are opened to both the teacher and other members of the respective community, and the result at best can be quite cosmic, and certainly very rewarding and uplifting between the persons involved.

Maybe it is crucial in the situation that the person is suitably distant. For example, Maharaji only being encountered on stage in a prepared setting, or in a rigorously controlled darshan line.
Buddhists, of course, are separated from Lord Buddha (whoever he may have originally been) by a screen of 2,600 years.
Christians usually relate to the nice guy Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, and forget the other controversial bits about hell and so on.

The teacher represents to people a higher state of humanity, a target of aspiration.

The trouble commences in two ways:

When the Master's off-stage private personality leaks out, and this contrasts with the idealised version.
This causes great confusion.

Secondly, if the Master's teaching becomes obviously questionable, and seems to refer more to personal self-gratification rather than to loving interraction with other humans.
Then the alarm bells start ringing like crazy.

The dynamic within DLM/EV was to strive towards an idealised and more elevated permanent state of consciousness (Maharaji continues this nowadays through the virtually impossible demand of permanent breath focus).
To achieve this through endless meditation, service and satsang/video attendance alone was, it seems to me, totally impossible.

I think the purest form of experience was back within community days, the sharing of the satsang chair, and the devotional practises.
That often allowed much of the ego bullshit to be dispelled, because to feel you were really imparting satsang, you had to open up and be real, and let whatever blockages that were there come out and dissolve.

Yes, to me, this devotional community lifestyle was, at best, the true expression of what Knowledge was, shared love in action, through devotion towards the idea of Love itself.

Premieland is greatly more fragmented these days, through the separation between people which has taken place over the years. Some people are very ego-driven and nastily competitive.
Or reclusive and screwed-up.

There will always remain a small caucus of satisfied adherents, however IMO.
Probably those with a good network of friendships and family within the scene. These probably find it the easiest to block out the dissonant aspects of the involvement, and have much backup instantly at hand to deal with life problems.
The 'bongos' of yore have largely disappeared into obscurity, or can be ignored (no, it isn't nice, but seems to happen).

The original sense of extended human family is largely abandoned, however, which tends to render the whole effort pretty self-indulgent.
And also, through avoiding the personal need to be upfront and question one's own motivations and ego-state, a block is placed on real development of character and personal quality. People become somewhat infantilised, and that state of raised awareness becomes remoter than ever. Since, IMO, anything like that can only be achieved by selfless humans with an intrinsic love of others, and the world all around them.