Azi, of course there will be many times in life you’ll have to make your own decisions. You will do this based on the chinuch and hashkafos you got from home, and that you imbibed from the beis medrash and responsible mentors.
But let’s turn this around. Say your mother says, do I have to ask everyone? I researched this, there are sound halachic grounds for these snoods being acceptable, and anyway there is a minority opinion that says that covering the hair is not what is implied by “paruah” (when the sotah has her hair mussed) but that the requirement is to wear hair in a demure style.
What will you say then?
Also, Rav Chaim shlit”a made that decision after great research that I am sure did not involve getting the opinion of the hamon am, whether on a blog or not. He may well have taken the financial impact on the hamon am into consideration; I am not privy to how he goes about issuing a psak. But he definitely did not make an informed decision based on the random people’s opinions.
You say “Yiddishkeit isn’t run like a Dictatorship.” With all due respect, people who think that way usually don’t have a problem with other people wearing mesh tichels.