I actually haven't seen that much said here implying that premies must be unhappy.  Clearly, most ex-premies were unhappy as premies, enough to get them to be looking around, questioning, and leaving.  I think the reason exes might think that premies are unhappy is that many ex-premies didn't realize how bad it was until after they left and actually allowed the "doubtmaker" to think about it.

Didn't Kahneman write about how people tend to underestimate their ability (actually the ability of humans) to cope with difficult situations, job loss, ending of a relationship, death in the family, etc., and so they tend to chalk up their ability to do so to religion, or God, or something outside of themselves?

I really believe that this phenomenon makes people believe that something special is happening which is supernatural.  When you hear people talk about how much religion means to them, they usually refer to a difficult time and how religion helped them deal with it better, and this tendency to think it will be worse than it is, tends to make people think they have been "helped" by religion.

I think the same thing is true with premies.  The Rawat cult is really a cult of atribution, in which "good" experiences are attributed to Rawat/knowledge.  In satsang days, premies often talked bout how lucky they were to be premies because it made some external bad event so much easier.