“Worship the Rebbe as he is the only path to salvation”
You should learn Noam Elimelech and other early Chassidic texts and then you will at least see the things you find offensive about Lubavitch (which I obviously would not consider worship) are really just mainstream Chassidus. The reason you think its a Lubavitch zach is because Lubavitchers are not afraid to teach Chassidus as opposed to others who preferred to keep things under wraps or else don’t even know what their own predecessors believed because they don’t learn Toras Hachassidus. The notion that everyone is attached to the Tzadik and through connection to them their avosas Hashem is elevated is not something Lubavitch invented. Aderaba, part of the machlokes against The Admor Hazaken was that the Admor Hazaken held that despite that fact, it is still necessary for every person to engage in a high level of avoda and it is not sufficient to rely on the Tzaddik, and the disputants held that Toras HaChassidus and Avodas HaChassidus is for tzaddikim, and its enough for others to be inspired by the charisma of the tzaddik, his miracles etc. and for their avoda to be elevated through that relationship. The same machlokes was essentially born out when the Yid Hakadosh, R’ Simcha Bunem, and the Kotzker had a machlokes with the other talmidim of the Chozeh of Lublin in that average people need to be engaged in real divine service as opposed to living off of rebbishe maysos and the emotional attachment and outer trappings of “popular hasidism.”