rebdoniel: Interstingly enough, I understand your predicament. But if you want to take the lead in an established shul, you have to follow the rules. If you want to set your own rules, become the Rav of your own kehilla and you can then pasken for your Tzibbur.
Changing established practices is serious business. When the Maharil (the foremost Authority on Minhag Ashkenaz) was invited to be Ba’al Mussaf for RH in one town, he inserted a piyut, really against the community’s practice, and it appears from sources, a tragedy struck his family, to which he confessed that it was his insistence on changing the community’s custom.
The Rav (Rav Soloveichik) is the Rav and had his own Shittas (Do you repeat Zecher and Zaicher by Ashrei every time?) Same by the Gr”a, the Mechaber, the Noda BiYehuda. But again, when we’re on that level, then …
Concerning the Zohar — IMHO, the Zohar we have nowadays appears to me to be a conglomeration of the works of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Moshe De Leon.