GAON:
Certainly I disagree with the OP’s statements when understood in a literal, shallow sense…I wonder, too, at his intentions but I decided to take his question at face value…
Regarding all statements mentioning “Misnagdim” (and “Misnagdim vs. Chassidim”), it is important to understand that these days, when the real, hard-core Misnaged of two hundred years ago is not at ALL what exists today. The terms refer to the concepts behind them. For example, there are many “chassidim” who are really not so much chassidim! (Many of whom you can easily find hanging around the CR…) don’t wanna get too much into here though…
Now, when you really, REALLY dig down deep into the kishkes of the concepts, Gan Eden vs. Olam Hazeh really are opposing emphases between the two parties, VERY ROUGHLY speaking. That is, if you speak to your average Litvisher Yeshiva bochur (and I have spoken to no small amount of them, from various backgrounds, and have heard many, many others spoken to as well), it is not uncommon to find that the end-goal, the ultimate purpose, is to, say, be a Talmid Chochom. Or, perhaps, to gain schar mitzvah and so on and so forth.
Now, Gan Eden is representative of a concept of receiving reward for your actions; of GETTING to some kind of compensation for your actions etc. And this, in effect, is ultimately the same as being a Talmid Chochom, or schar mitzvah mitzvah in the traditional understanding of the verse.
Contrary to that, Chassidus Chabad very much emphasizes the avoda that we do here in this world as an end-goal in and of itself. So, obviously, everyone will agree that that is our purpose, and other groups will hold that to be an ikkar. The question is in the concept behind it, what is the significance of this avoda. So in a sense, yes, Chassidus Chabad will often circle around this world as an ikkar more-so than other groups might, but I still don’t think that THAT is what is the one thing unique about Chabad that sets it different than other groups.
Regarding Polish Chassidim, of course you are correct, and I attempted at some point in my previous comment to so much as hint at that, but as you say this isn’t the place for such an arichus…
I wrote the above in a bit of a hurry and without editing so I realize some of it may be a tiny bit difficult to understand what I’m getting at…I’ll be happy to clarify upon request.