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It is well-recognized that the New Testament canon was established by popular usage long before the official recognition was made. The early church of the Roman empire did itself (and us) a favor by disavowing uninspired and heretical teachings.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Yes, the individual books were around, but the Church (which, of course, was the only churhc around at the time) put it all together after much study and prayer. Since they were able to put it all together, I would say they should have the last word on it. Well, the various heretics had so maligned the early Latin copies that Jerome cleaned up what became the Vulgate around 390 A.D. He worked with unknown sources but primarily is thought to have used early Latin translations supplemented by various unknown Greek manuscripts and other materials such as Origen's Hexapla. I don't think I'm being unfair to the Vulgate here. I think that most of Rome's scholars would summarize it about the same way.

So the picture you are trying to paint is little simpler than history tells us and overlooks some key points. And some things about the ealy translations and manuscipts will never be known with certainty. The early church and the early versions of the New Testament were not exactly what everyone thinks. The picture of both is distorted. This is why modern versions rely upon the two major Greek manuscript families entirely. The Vulgate of the early church was actually a great work considering the time it was produced and the proliferation of adulterated source texts with which Jerome had to contend.

But the modern church of Rome in no way "owns" the Bible. They are not very close in doctrine or practice to what the church was at that time so their opinion, corrupted as it is by so many centuries of self-serving alteration and doctrinal interpretation, is more than a little suspect. One needn't be too familiar with translation and doctrinal issues to observe this simple fact.