I think that is an apt analogy. By the time Luther had come along the Church had become a overweight behemoth where tradition no longer supplemented scripture, but in many cases had replaced it. Personally I like the fact that there are hundreds of different sects within what ought to be called orthodox christianity. I think it minimizes error inasmuch as nearly every sect including the right honorable Roman sect has at least some error but most of those errors involve ancillary rather than primary doctrinal disputes. (Of course most of those sects split off because they considered those ancillary positions to be primary).
The emergence of sectarian division has not divided the church, but in many ways it has united it. It has given us all the opportunity to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good." In Luther's day, if you tried to "prove all things" and disagreed with the powers that be, often the only thing you would prove is that human flesh reaches flash point at about 500 degrees Farenheit.
Each individual believer is admonished to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling. Each individual believer is admonsished to prove all things. Each individual believer is admonished to search the scriptures to know whether these things be true. In a centralized heirarchy, "The Thinking Has Been Done." When you reach that point, you have reached the pinnacle of the Tower of Babel. It is then time to scatter the masses.
Yep.
The way I see it in Heaven the Catholics will be in charge of the ceremony, the Reformers in charge of the teaching, the Methodists in charge of the music, and the PDL crowd in charge of the Powerpoint presentations. :O)