SJSinNYC,
I don’t want to be disrespectful, because I know it bothers you very much when people speak with disrespect to eachother (I don’t mean to be sarcastic in case I am coming across like that). Basically, I don’t this post will have any effect on you, but just to explain why you will never agree with eachother. Although in almost all aspects I can barely ever come up with one thing that you say against “halacha”.
You say that you don’t feel that you need gates [gedarim] for yourself.
I know this is a bit out of context but anyone can feel free to look at your post and I don’t think the words around it change it much. I think it is a bit scary. You seem to trust in yourself a bit too much. I am sure you are very trustworthy but you are still human. Chazal tell us that one should not trust in himself. (I dont remember the exact wording.) Again, I doubt I will have any influence on your life, but realize that when people seem to be equating “yeshivish” with more frum, see where they are coming from. They are not referring to the black hat. (Most people from more MO backgrounds who become more “yeshivish” don’t think they are doing a big mitzva by putting on the black hat. I assume they want to fit into the community around them which I think is pretty normal. That is usually one of the later steps.)
FYI, all the laws of muktza are pretty much gedarim.